In Deep
by ZVArmy
Summary: They say love conquers all. Will that prove to be true for Bayley Martinez and Becky Lynch when they find themselves plunged into the heart of a conflict between mob bosses Hunter Helmsley and Roman Reigns? (Bayley/Becky)
1. Chapter 1

As expected, there were no lights on in the house. The place looked to be totally empty, just as it was supposed to be. So far, so good, Becky Lynch thought as she crouched in the bushes at the bottom of the garden. With a dull thud, her girlfriend, and partner in crime, Bayley Martinez landed beside her after climbing over the wall.

"It looks deserted, just like he said," Bayley whispered.

"Yeah," Becky agreed. "We'll stay here for five minutes first, like I said earlier."

Both women remained completely still in the bushes, surveying the house and the garden for any signs of life. Although no one was expected to be there, it was much better to be safe than sorry. They were dressed appropriately for the robbery they were intending to commit, in black jeans, leather jackets and gloves.

"This should be easy money," Bayley whispered a couple of minutes later. "Get into an empty house, download some files from a computer, and get out again."

"Right," Becky said. "And if what Mr Reigns said was accurate, which I don't doubt, there won't even be any security cameras or guards around the place for us to worry about. It doesn't look like a big enough house for someone who might hire guards anyway. I can't see any cameras."

"Ric Flair. The guy is a lawyer," Bayley remembered from the brief that Roman and Nicole Reigns had given them they day before. The Reigns were the heads of arguably the biggest criminal organisation in the city, which meant that doing a successful job for them was vitally important for more than one reason. On one hand, the money on offer was great, and there would likely be further work if they did the job as ordered. On the other hand, if they failed, they would likely be killed. Such was life, when you took work from people like Roman Reigns. Anyway, Bayley reasoned, where was the potential for failure in such a simple job? If anything, it was a stroke of luck that the Reigns had given them something so easy for their first test.

"Break into the place, download all of the files from the computer onto this flash drive, then get out. We've had the place scouted and there is no CCTV, and Flair doesn't have anyone guard the place when he's out of town. It should be as simple as getting in and out, but make sure you do it without leaving any sign that you were there. Flair cannot know that someone has been in the house."

That was how Mr Reigns had summed up his orders to them after giving them the more elongated version. Bayley had no idea what Reigns might want from the computer, and she honestly didn't give a damn. It was of no importance or interest to her. Handing over the flash drive and collecting the money in return was as far as her concern extended, and she knew that Becky felt the same way. Besides, if Mr Reigns hadn't divulged the information, it meant that he didn't want them to know. That was his prerogative.

"Alright, there's no signs of life," Becky whispered after another few minutes had ticked slowly by.

"Okay, let's do it," Bayley said, giving her girlfriend a quick peck on the lips.

Moving quickly, the two women dashed across the lawn and took cover once more with their backs against the brickwork. No one had called out to sound the alarm.

"Now we need to get in the door. Shouldn't take me long," Becky said, pulling a set of lockpicks out of her jacket pocket. "You stay here, out of sight, until I'm done."

"Okay," Bayley agreed as Becky disappeared around the corner of the house. She knew her girlfriend wouldn't take long to get the door open. She was a master at lockpicking. Sure enough, Becky's head appeared back around the corner less than five minutes later.

"We're in."

Both women carefully wiped their feet on the doormat, not wanting to track any dirt into the house, then Bayley followed Becky into the house. Sure enough, there wasn't a sound to be heard. Off the hallway that they had walked into, the living room door stood open. Even without turning a light on, she could see that the furnishings were about what you would expect to find in a typical middle class home. Again, it struck her as strange that a seemingly unremarkable lawyer had something of such significant value to Roman Reigns.

"He said the office is on the first floor," Becky whispered, focusing on the job at hand as she pointed to the nearby staircase. They made their way up the stairs, walking as quietly as possible, out of habit as much as anything else.

The first floor landing extended in both directions either side of the staircase, with several doors on each side of the landing, most of which stood open. There was light coming from one of the rooms on the right hand side. It wasn't a ceiling light; it looked more like a TV or computer screen that had been left on.

"That's probably the office," Bayley whispered. "I'll check it out. You go left and check those rooms, just in case."

"Alright," Becky agreed. Bayley was the tech-savvy one, so she would be the one doing the work on Flair's computer, downloading its contents to the flash drive.

The two women parted ways and Becky commenced her cursory inspection of the rooms on the left hand side of the landing. The first room she walked into was a bathroom. Nothing of interest there. Next came what looked like a guest bedroom - empty of course. Just as she walked back towards the door, Becky was taken by surprise by the sound of a woman's voice.

"Throw the fucking flash drive to me, now. And get away from the computer."

Someone else was in the house! She had found Bayley! Now what?

In the office at the other end of the house, Bayley had nearly had a heart attack when the woman had walked in on her. In the dim light from the computer screen, all she could make out was that the woman was blonde, and dressed in a similar way to Becky and herself. Who was she, and what the hell was she doing in the house? The exact same mission, seemed to be the obvious answer. Then it clicked in Bayley's head. The reason the computer screen had been on when she and Becky had walked up the stairs was that this woman had already been using it. She must have heard them opening the front door and hidden somewhere.

"Who are you?" Bayley asked, stalling for time as she got up out of the chair behind the desk. The one advantage she had was that the woman might not know that Becky was also in the house, unless she had heard them whispering to each other. Given that she had been confronted alone, that seemed unlikely.

"Forget the questions," the woman snapped. "Flash drive, now!"

"Alright, take it easy," Bayley said nervously, hoping that her acting was good enough. The mystery woman was standing in the doorway, unable to see what Bayley could see - the black-clad figure of Becky creeping up behind her, carrying a porcelain table lamp.

"Don't tell me to take it..." was as far as the woman got before Becky smashed the lamp over the back of her head with a tremendous crash, sending her crumpling face first to the floor, unconscious. Pieces of the disintegrating lamp had exploded all over the room.

"What the fuck?" the Irish woman asked, looking at her girlfriend with wide eyes.

"You tell me?" Bayley shrugged. "Looks like Reigns wasn't the only one who wanted whatever's on this stupid computer." She looked at the pieces of the lamp all over the floor. "So much for nobody noticing we were here."

Becky had crouched down beside the unconscious woman and checked the side of her neck for a pulse. "She's alive. In fact she's not even bleeding," she said in surprise after checking through the woman's hair. "Her head must be made of concrete or something."

"Never mind what her head's made of, what are we going to do with her?" Bayley asked, frustrated by how quickly everything had gone wrong.

Considering that for a moment, Becky shook her head. "We can't leave her here. Reigns couldn't have been clearer about this guy Flair not knowing that someone had been on the computer. If we leave her here, there's a good chance she'll still be there by the time someone comes home. Who knows how long she'll be out cold for. We'll have to take her with us." She paused for a second, then said, "Fucking hell. This was supposed to be a simple job. Reigns is going to lose his shit when he finds out we had to kidnap someone."

"I'd rather that than have to tell him we blew his specific instruction about no one knowing we were here. You heard how emphatically he said it. We'll have to take her and then tell Reigns what happened."

"I know," Becky sighed. There was no other choice. They were going to get some serious flack from Roman Reigns anyway, but it was hardly their fault that this woman had been in the house, trying to do the same mission as them. At least this way, they could plead the case that they had fulfilled all of the criteria he had given them, and he could then make the decision on what to do about the mystery woman.

"I'm going to carry on downloading this stuff," Bayley announced, sitting back down in the chair and diverting her attention to the computer screen.

"Do that," Becky agreed. "And I'll go find something to tie her up with, and something to put all these pieces of lamp into. We'll have to hope that no one uses the guest room I took it from any time soon."

As Becky left the room, Bayley got back to work transferring files onto the flash drive. Copying everything on the computer's hard drive was a time consuming process.

Downstairs, Becky found a utility closet off the kitchen. Searching it in the dark wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do, but she didn't want to risk turning a light on. Soon enough, she was making her way back upstairs with a couple of simple items that likely wouldn't be missed by anyone in the Flair household any time soon.

"Any luck?" Bayley asked, glancing up at Becky when she walked back into the office.

"Yeah. I found a bin liner to put the bits of lamp into, and I have duct tape to take care of our friend here."

"Better tape her up first, just in case."

Becky nodded, cringing as she remembered how wrong things had gone last time Bayley had said just in case. There was certainly no room for any more mistakes on this job, or Reigns would have them both killed for sure. Without saying anything more, Becky got to work with the tape. Even though she was sure their new friend would be unconscious for several more hours after the hefty blow she'd taken - plenty long enough for them to get her back home - Becky's primary thought was to avoid anything else going wrong. The woman had to be securely tied up for transportation.

To that end, she wrapped the tape around the woman's ankles several times, then did the same to her legs, both above and below the knee. They were muscly, powerful legs, Becky couldn't help noticing. The unconscious woman was lying face down, with her arms splayed out across the carpet. Becky was glad, as it made the process of securing her gloved hands behind her back easier. Crossing the woman's wrists over each other, Becky encased them in plenty of tape, thinking thwt it was a good idea to leave the gloves on. It ruled out any remote chance of the woman managing to pick at her bonds with her fingernails. Next, moved on to wrap even more tape around her arms just below the elbows.

Perfect, she decided when she was done, standing back to survey her handiwork. Half of the large roll of duct tape had already been used on their captive. It was thick, strong stuff, too. Becky had noticed how sticky the adhesive was while she had been working with it, feeling it stick to her gloved fingers several times. Their captive wouldn't be moving around any time soon. In fact, it would likely take scissors or a knife to even have a chance of getting her free.

"Better gag her as well," Bayley advised.

"Just in case," Becky finished, before her girlfriend had the chance to say it. The cute grin she got in return made her heart skip a beat, just like it always did.

"Exactly," Bayley said. "The last thing we need is her waking up in the back of the car and making a bunch of noise."

"That's a good point," Becky said with concern as she elaborately wrapped the duct tape around the woman's head several times, making sure it as tight as could be to effectively seal up her mouth. "How are we going to get her in the car? I don't exactly like the idea of carrying a taped up woman down the street to our car."

"We'll have to back the car up the driveway to the house. I know we ideally didn't want to do something like that, but what choice do we have now?"

"You're right," Becky admitted reluctantly. "That's the plan then. First, I'll pick these bits of lamp up while you finish there. Actually, I should probably try and find a hoover and run that over it. If someone comes home and finds some bits of lamp that I missed, it's going to be more than obvious that someone has been in here."

"Actually, I'm done," Bayley announced, removing the flash drive from the computer. "It's shutting down now. No one would ever know I'd been on it."

"Great work," Becky smiled.

Bayley walked around the desk and looked down at the securely taped up woman. "Why don't you carry her downstairs and get the car, Bex? I'll look for a hoover and finish up in here."

It was the most practical division of labour, Becky knew. She was stronger than Bayley, and their new acquaintance was a well-built woman. "Fuck knows what Reigns is going to do with her," Becky said, crouching down to lift the woman from the floor. Grunting with the effort, she stood up and slung the hefty burden over her shoulder.

Watching Becky carry the woman out of the room, Bayley found herself thinking that her girlfriend's choice of wording was probably optimistic. Roman Reigns was hardly likely, in her estimation, to take on the responsibility of dealing with whoever the woman was. That was probably going to be the second job she and Becky were given, and they would be working for free as well. And that was if they caught Reigns in a good mood when they broke the news. At least they had the flash drive. Hopefully that would pacify him somewhat.

Ten minutes later, Bayley was putting the hoover back where she had found it, after giving the office carpet a thorough going-over. Cleaning up all of the smaller bits of the broken lamp had meant turning the light on for a couple of minutes, but that was by far the lesser of two evils.

"Come on," Becky hissed impatiently, waiting by the open front door.

"I'm coming," Bayley said, jogging over to the door. "Are we ready to go?"

"We are. Our friend is in the trunk. Let's move."

Bayley got into the passenger side of their car, which was now parked just outside of the front door. It was lucky, she thought, that the Flair family didn't have gates on their driveway.

After making sure the door was properly closed and locked behind them, Becky ran around to the driver's side. She pulled the car out onto the street and drove away slowly, not wanting to attract any attention to the car. "What a goddamned mess!" she exclaimed, finally allowing her frustration to bubble over.

"That won't help," Bayley said soothingly, trying to cool Becky's fiery temper. "We're in a tricky spot, but we'll get through it. We'll get through it together, like we always do."

Becky glanced over at her girl and drew strength from the loving look in her eyes. "I know, Bay. But I don't know what I'd do without you."

"You'll never have to find out," Bayley promised her. "Now focus on the road. We need to get home alive before we do anything else."

Fifteen minutes later, after a thankfully incident free journey, Becky parked the car in the attached garage at their modern, two story house. Luckily, having the attached garage would allow them to take their captive out of the trunk without even the slightest risk of any prying eyes seeing what was going on.

"Let's see if our friend is awake yet," Bayley said as Becky killed the engine and pushed the button attached to the keyring which commanded the garage door to close itself.

"She won't be," Becky said confidently, getting out of the car. "She can spend the night in the basement. We'll have to leave her there tomorrow morning when we go and see Roman."

"We weren't supposed to go over there until the evening," Bayley reminded her.

Becky pointed at the closed trunk lid. "That was before she showed up. We're going over there tomorrow morning."

"Okay, the morning it is," Bayley conceded. "Let's get her in the basement then."

Becky popped the trunk. The blonde woman was lying on her side, facing away from them. She was still, and silent, still out cold as Becky had predicted. "I'll carry her, Bay. You open the doors."

"Sure," Bayley agreed.

Then Becky rolled the woman over onto her back, to make her easier to lift. It was the first time they had seen their captive's face in any kind of reasonable light. Becky felt like she had been kicked in the stomach. Her legs nearly went from under her.

"Tell me that's not who I think it is," Bayley breathed beside her.

Becky gulped. There was no mistaking that face, especially not with the distinctive mole on one cheek. Everyone in the city knew this woman's face. If there was a list of people not to kidnap, her name would have been right up there at the top. "That's Ronda Helmsley," Becky muttered, barely able to get the words out.

Bayley closed her eyes for a second. They had managed to kidnap the daughter of Hunter and Stephanie Helmsley. The Helmsleys were the heads of the other major criminal organisation in the city, and therefore the biggest rivals of Roman and Nicole Reigns. "Oh my god," she gasped.

The two women looked at each other, shock and fear written all over both of their faces. Becky summed up the situation. "We're in deep shit."


	2. Chapter 2

"What are we going to do?" Becky panicked, pacing around the living room in front of Bayley, who was slumped at one end of their black leather couch.

Feeling her frustration approaching critical levels, Bayley had to restrain herself from snapping. It was probably the fifth or sixth time Becky had said the same thing since they'd locked the unconscious Ronda Helmsley in their basement. "Please sit down, Bex," she urged. "We're going to have to think this through properly before we decide where we go from here."

Becky's voice rose in incredulity. "Where we go from here? Six feet under is where we go from here! Reigns is going to kill us for this! Have you got any idea how much the Reigns and the Helmsleys hate each other? Now we've just gone and kicked the hornet's nest like you wouldn't believe!"

"Can you stop shouting?" Bayley pleaded. "Losing our cool isn't going to make anything any better, and neither is taking it out on me. We're in this mess together, okay?"

As tempting as it was to keep ranting, Becky knew that her girlfriend was right. She was making things worse by shouting. Feeling defeated by the impossible situation, she let herself drop onto the couch next to Bayley.

"You're right," she said, more calmly. "We're in this together. God knows how we can get through it alive, though. Even if Reigns doesn't have us killed for dropping him in the shit with the Helmsleys, Hunter will have us killed himself anyway for kidnapping his daughter. You know as well as I do how ruthless he can be. Everyone in this city knows that." Bayley tried to cut in, but Becky wasn't done. "Somehow, I don't think Ronda's going to thank us for smashing a lamp over her head, wrapping her in duct tape, and keeping her hostage in our basement, either."

Bayley had to admit that their prospects didn't look good. Everything Becky had said was true. They would be lucky if Roman Reigns let them live for their error, which was how he would likely perceive it. It was also true that everyone knew Hunter Helmsley's reputation for ruthlessness with anyone who crossed him or did something against his family. And boy, had they done something against his family. They had kidnapped his only child, the daughter he undoubtedly doted over. Everyone had heard stories about how Hunter Helmsley dealt with those who got on the wrong side of him.

The story that sprang to mind was that Hunter had caught someone skimming money off the top of one of the family businesses, and had handled the disciplinary process personally. That process had allegedly involved slowly lowering the culprit alive into a boiling vat of oil. Imagining a more horrifying and painful death was a difficult task. Bayley would certainly have made a bet that no one had skimmed from a Helmsley business since then. If that was the punishment for skimming, what would he think up for the two people who had kidnapped his daughter? It made her shudder to even think about it.

"There's only one thing we can possibly do," Bayley mumbled, feeling the colour draining from her face as she considered how bleak their prospects really were. "We're going to have to go see Reigns first thing in the morning and be prepared to plead for our lives. I know we weren't supposed to go over there until the evening, but having Ronda on our hands changes things. At the very least, we have the flash drive full of data that Roman wanted us to get."

Becky just sat there for a long moment, eyes glazed over. "What if we took her back to the Helmsley mansion?" she asked faintly. "We could explain the situation; that we encountered Ronda in the dark, didn't know who she was, and I knocked her out. We didn't know what to do, so we took her with us."

"No way am I going to the Helmsley mansion," Bayley said firmly. "Not a chance in hell. Nothing you can say will convince me Hunter won't have us killed for this, whether we take her back or not."

Becky turned to look at her. "What if we kill her tonight, then? What if we kill her and dump her body somewhere?"

"I couldn't kill someone in cold blood like that," Bayley said, horrified by the idea. "I don't even know anything about Ronda Helmsley. You see her in public with her mom and dad, but you never hear anything about what she does in the business. At least, I never have. Who knows, she might be a nice girl who doesn't deserve to be going through this. Even if she's not, I can't murder her in cold blood. I'd never be able to live with myself. No, Bex, we have to go to Reigns with this."

"You're right," Becky sighed. "I couldn't kill her either. I was just putting options out there. I seriously doubt a daughter of Hunter and Stephanie Helmsley will be a nice girl, but I can't kill her. Who knows, maybe we're overstating how Reigns will react because we're scared of him. He gave us the mission to get into Flair's house and get the data off the computer. It's really not our fault that she happened to be there as well." She stopped for a second and looked at her watch. "Perhaps we should go see him tonight? It's not midnight yet."

"Maybe he'll see it that way," Bayley said, sounding about as hopeful as she felt. "You might be right about going over there tonight, too. It might look better that we came to him right away when things didn't go to plan. But if we do that, what about Ronda? My vote is leave her here for now, taped up. She saw me in the office and the light from the computer screen was right on me, and it would have been enough for her to get a good look at me. She knows what I look like, so we can't risk her escaping. Besides, Reigns would definitely kill us if that happened."

After a moment, Becky nodded her agreement. "Okay, I think you're right. We'll go see Reigns tonight, but we'll leave her here. It's not like she's going anywhere. Let's get changed, then we can go."

* * *

A pounding headache was the first thing Ronda Helmsley noticed when she started to come around. There was a single unshaded light bulb hanging from the the ceiling above where she was lying, and its brightness hurt her eyes. Whoever had hit her from behind at the Flair house hadn't been doing things in half measures, that was for sure. She cursed herself for making the stupid error of assuming that only one person had been been in the house with her.

Feeling very groggy, Ronda tried to sit up and take stock of her situation. Only then did she realise that she couldn't move either her legs or her arms. She was tied up. Her legs were bound tightly together and her wrists were secured behind her back. Then came the realisation that something was also wrapped tightly around her mouth as a gag. Groaning in pain and frustration, she lay there for a moment, waiting for consciousness to completely return. When she felt able, she made a better attempt at sitting up, this time proving successful. All she had really achieved was to take the weight of her body off her arms, immediately causing a pins and needles sensation to assault her as the blood flow resumed.

Looking down at her legs, she saw why she was totally unable to move them. Silver duct tape had been wrapped multiple times around her ankles, and also around her legs, both above and below the knee. Getting out of that wasn't going to be easy, especially with the same tape restraining her wrists behind her. It also felt like there was more tape wrapped around her arms below the elbow. Whoever had done this certainly knew how to tie someone up. She could tell that they had been equally as thorough with the gag as well. The tape was so tight it was squeezing her cheeks against her jaw and teeth. Thick adhesive totally sealed her lips, and filled her mouth with a nasty taste as a final insult. Breathing was difficult with her mouth so comprehensively covered. If there was one small positive, it was that her nose felt clear.

Looking around the room, Ronda grunted angrily, pointlessly, into the tape as the face of the nerdy-looking dark haired woman who had been downloading the data from Flair's computer appeared, fresh in her mind despite the blow she had taken to the back of her head. That woman and whoever her partner or partners were would pay dearly for attacking a Helmsley like this. If there was one thing in life you didn't do, it was to be stupid enough to make Hunter Helmsley angry. It couldn't be allowed, and it never was allowed. Whoever these people were, they would pay for their actions with their lives.

That would come later. First, Ronda had to figure out where she was, then come up with a way to escape her predicament. She had been lying on a single blanket, on a concrete floor. There was a wooden staircase on the opposite side of the room, leading upwards. That fact, added to the concrete floor and the washing machine that was standing in one corner told her that she was in a basement. Flair's house didn't have a basement, so she was somewhere else. The people who had attacked her and ruined her mission to get the data from Flair's computer must have transported her back to their house. They should have killed her. That was what she would have done in their situation. Not doing so had been their biggest mistake of all.

The only other items in the basement were several cardboard boxes stacked in the corner opposite the washing machine. It was extremely unlikely that she would find anything there that she could use to free herself from the tape, but she had to try and look. Making her way over there was enough of a mission, taking her two full minutes of awkward crawling, growling severral times in frustration at how tightly her limbs were secured. The basement was really warm, and sweat was trickling down her face by the time she made it over to the boxes.

Craning her neck around as much as she could, she tried to wriggle her gloved fingers into a position to lift the lid of a single box that was lying beside the main stack. After several attempts, she managed to do so, only to reveal a stack of comic books. Stupid nerdy crap, she raged internally, with another groan into the tape. She pictured the woman at the computer again. That little fucking nerd was responsible for her being in this situation. Ronda wanted to strangle her with her bare hands.

Only then did it occur to Ronda that there was only one person who could have ordered the nerd to be in Ric Flair's house, trying to get the data from his computer. Roman Reigns had to be the one who was ultimately behind this. That meant that she was in a very bad situation indeed. If the people holding her delivered her to Reigns, she really didn't know what might happen. There was a real chance that he would kill her and dispose of her body, hoping that her mom and dad would never find out what had become of her. Fear started to take hold of her for the first time. She had to escape, but how? There was no way of getting herself out of this bondage, or getting the gag off her mouth. Only her captors could do that.

Straining against the tape wrapped around her mouth as much as she could, Ronda roared furiously, hoping that the people upstairs would be able to hear her.

* * *

"Shit. She's awake," Becky said needlessly when she heard the sound of muffled yelling coming from the basement. Thankfully, it wasn't anything close to loud enough for anyone outside of the house to hear. If Ronda had woken up a couple of minutes later, she and Bayley would have already left the house. "Quicker than I expected, too. That's one tough woman."

While they had been getting changed, Becky had correctly pointed out that they were the ones in control right now. It had to appear that way to their captive, and it had to appear that way to Roman Reigns when they got to his mansion. They couldn't go to him looking weak and pathetic. They had to look like they had reacted to the unexpected set of circumstances by taking decisive action. If anyone should be afraid, it was Ronda, not them. It was with that in mind that Bayley said, "We should go down there, but what are we going to say?"

"We tell her the truth," Becky said decisively. "We tell her that we work for Roman Reigns, and we're going over to see him now, so he can decide what to do with her. That should scare her enough for now."

"I'll let you do most of the talking," Bayley said as they headed for the door to the basement, not confident of being able to effectively hide her nervousness. She felt totally out of her depth. Robbery or tech related crimes were their area of expertise, not kidnapping or violence.

Becky stopped at the door and turned to give her girlfriend a reassuring kiss. "Follow my lead, Bay. You'll be fine. I love you."

"I love you too, Bex," Bayley said with a shy little smile. "Let's do it."

As she unlocked and opened the door, Becky heard Ronda try to shout through her gag again. It sounded to her like the shout of someone who was scared. Good. She made her way down the stairs slowly, deliberately, trying to keep in mind at all times how things would appear to Ronda. She saw that their captive had crawled off the blanket they had put down for her, and was sitting with her back propped against the stack of boxes in the corner of the room. Her eyes were wide, partially being forced that way by the tightness of the tape around her head, and partially out of apprehension at what might be about to happen. No one could avoid feeling that way after finding themselves taped up like that. Sweat soaked her face, several drops of it running down across the gag. She had clearly been putting a lot of effort into struggling against her bonds. The fact that she had achieved nothing was a very welcome sight.

"Gmmmpph!" Ronda growled, struggling with her wrists against their restraints.

"Sit still, and shut up," Becky ordered her harshly, trying to sound like she was used to doing this kind of thing all the time. She walked over towards Ronda, making sure to keep eye contact the whole time. Fear was present in the eyes she saw looking back at her, but also anger. Becky made increasing the first of those emotions and reducing the second her top priority as she crouched down in front of Ronda. "I know who you are," she revealed.

"Thhmmph lmm mm gmph," Ronda said into the tape. It pleased Becky to hear how indecipherable the words were. It would add to Ronda's sense of helplessness.

"Do you think I tied you up like that because I intend to let you go, Ronda? No. That's not going to happen. You see, what happened tonight was, you made the mistake of interfering with the job my girlfriend and I were trying to do." She saw Ronda's brow furrow at the word girlfriend. Homophobic. A good reason to feel a lot less sympathetic to her plight. "Oh, you don't like gay people, huh? Probably not a smart thing to be so obvious about when you're being held captive by two of them."

"Fmmk Ymph," Ronda growled angrily, aiming a weak kick at Becky with her bound legs.

"I think you should remind her who we work for," Bayley pointed out. She was leaning against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, trying to look casual despite the fact that her heard was pounding in her chest.

"Oh, I'm going to," Becky said, giving Ronda a nasty little grin. So far, she was pleased with her own acting, even though the results were not quite as impressive as she'd hoped for. But then, Ronda Helmsley was hardly likely to be a shrinking violet, was she? It was time to up the ante even more, if she wanted to scare their captive into submission. Leaning over Ronda, she went almost nose to nose with her. "We work for Roman Reigns, Ms Helmsley. That means you picked the wrong people to fuck with."

Ronda's original idea had been to plead with whoever came down to the basement, in the hope that they would release her and she could then attack them and escape. Unfortunately, this fake-redhead seemed to know what she was doing. She wouldn't be stupid enough to untie her. About the only positive thought left was that even Roman Reigns probably wouldn't be stupid enough to kill her. It would mean his own death, and the death of his entire family. Her father would stop at nothing to make sure of that, and Roman would know it.

Becky was thrown off by the lack of reaction from Ronda at the news. Maybe she had already figured it out for herself. Either way, it mattered not. The point was, Ronda now knew for sure who they worked for. "I'm going to see Mr Reigns now, and he's going to decide what to do with you. If you know what's good for you, get back on your blanket, lie still, and stay quiet. My girlfriend here will be upstairs, and if she hears another sound out of you while I'm gone, I'll make a decision of my own about what to do with you when I get back."

If looks could kill, Becky would have dropped dead on the spot. But Ronda made no further attempt to talk or to struggle with her bonds. Pleased, Becky stood back up and followed Bayley up the stairs. Her performance had been better than she had expected, although she had to admit that her threats were ultimately idle. The truth was that only one person was going to decide the fate of Ronda Helmsley now, and that person was Roman Reigns.

Bayley stood and watched Becky lock the door to the basement and put the key into one of the pockets in her jeans. "You did great, Bex," she whispered. "I'm so lucky you're here."

Becky gave her a rueful smile. "Yeah, but now we have to go speak to Roman. That's going to be the hard part. Come on, let's go get it over with."


	3. Chapter 3

Socialising into the small hours was a regular thing for Roman Reigns. One of the most important parts of being successful at the top of an empire like his was to have respect, loyalty, even adulation from both his underlings and also his peers, wherever possible. Entertaining guests for dinner followed by drinks in his living room often proved to be the best way to do business, even with people he didn't like. That was the reason why he and his wife Nicole found themselves engaged in conversation Mike Mizanin and his wife Maryse at gone midnight. The gentlemen had seen off the better part of a bottle of brandy, while the women were now working on their second bottle of wine.

Deep down, Reigns welcomed the interruption when Seth Rollins, one of his most trusted men, walked into the room and hovered near the door. However, the businessman in him knew that getting up and walking out of the room didn't send a good message to his guests. In turn, he knew that Rollins knew that too, which meant that there had to be a good reason for the intrusion.

"Excuse me," Reigns said to his guests, downing his latest brandy and setting the glass down on the coffee table in front of him. Nicole tried to catch his eye with a questioning expression, but he ignored her.

Rollins lead the way out into the vast, marble-floored entrance hallway, and Reigns pulled the door gently closed behind him. "This better be good," he said, a sharp edge to his voice.

"Good isn't the word, boss," Rollins said cautiously. "But it is important. The two women who were here yesterday, the redhead and her partner, are here, saying they need to see you right away."

Reigns' expression darkened in anger and the sharp edge remained in his tone. "They're not supposed to be here until tomorrow evening."

"I reminded them of that," Rollins said. "The redhead said she knew, but she had to see you now anyway because something has gone wrong. She wouldn't tell me what it was."

"Give me fucking strength," Reigns growled to himself under his breath. "Where are they?"

"I had Styles show them to your office. He'll be in there with them to keep an eye on them till you get there."

"Right," Reigns grunted, then stormed off towards the office.

* * *

Thanks to her nerves, Bayley was finding it hard to sit still in the expensive leather chair in front of Roman Reigns' desk. There was a very real possibility that she and Becky might not make it through the night if this meeting went badly. She was beyond grateful that Becky had agreed to do most of the talking. As the more confident of the two, she stood the best chance of pacifying Mr Reigns. The smartly-dressed man with long hair who had lead them to the office was now standing against the wall near the door. His role in the meeting to come was obviously to be seen, but not heard. Glancing at Becky, she got what was intended to be a reassuring look in return.

Then the office door flew open. Bayley nearly jumped out of her skin. Reigns stormed into the room, the top two buttons of his white shirt unbuttoned and a thunderous expression on his face. She genuinely wondered if he was about to kill them both right there and then.

"Who's going to explain to me why I've just walked out on two guests, to come and speak to people who aren't supposed to be here?" Reigns demanded aggressively as he walked around behind his desk. He didn't take a seat. Seemingly his anger wouldn't permit him to sit down.

"We're very sorry, Mr Reigns," Becky began, not faltering, to her credit. She took the flash drive out of her pocket and put it on the desk. "We completed the job exactly as you instructed. There's the drive, with all of the data from Flair's computer. Unfortunately, there was a complication."

Reigns didn't even look at the flash drive, instead alternating his glare between Becky and Bayley. "What complication?" he asked threateningly.

Becky could feel her hands starting to shake as the time to mention Ronda Helmsley's name approached. "Someone else was in the house, trying to do the same job we were doing. She walked in on Bayley, but she didn't know I was there too. I came from behind and knocked her out. Remembering how specific you were about Flair not knowing anyone had been there, we decided to take her with us. It was only when we got home that we got a proper look at her and realised who it was."

"I'm not liking where this is going," Reigns snarled. "Am I about to hear the name Helmsley?"

Becky couldn't meet his eyes. She didn't know how he had arrived at the correct conclusion so quickly, and she wasn't going to guess. "Yes. We kidnapped Ronda Helmsley. She's tied up in our basement right now."

Reigns let out a low growl, so full of rage that Becky seriously considered getting up and running. As he leaned forward over the desk, resting both tightly clenched fists on its surface, Becky felt sure he was about to give his man by the door the order to take them away and dispose of them. Then, after closing his eyes for a couple of seconds, he said, "I've got a better idea. What I want the two of you to do is go back home, fetch Ronda Helmsley and bring her here. Now."

"Yes, Mr Reigns," Becky said, quickly getting up and heading for the door, with Bayley following right behind. She didn't want to imagine what the original idea he'd had was, before deciding that this new one was better.

When the door closed behind them, Styles took a couple of steps closer to the desk. "They kidnapped Ronda Helmsley. My god. What are we going to do, boss?"

Reigns looked up at him with a nasty little smile on his face. "AJ, we can either look at this as a problem, or an opportunity. I know which I prefer. Get on the phone to Dean Ambrose. Tell him to get his ass over here now, and I do mean now."

Styles nodded his acknowledgment and walked quickly from the room.

Left alone in the office, Reigns picked up and pocketed the flash drive, then took a moment to compose himself before heading back to the living room. Bad impression or not, his guests were going to have to leave. There was now a much more important situation to attend to.

On his way back across the entrance hallway, Reigns saw Rollins standing guard near the front door and gestured with his head for him to join him. As they walked over to the living room, Reigns refastened the second button on his shirt. The small change was to signify the transition from pleasure (allegedly) back to business.

When he walked back into the living room, he found Nicole doing her best to entertain their two visitors, who both looked at him as he walked in. "Mike, Maryse, I have to apologise; some urgent business has come up that I must attend to right away."

Mizanin finished his brandy and set the glass on the table beside Roman's. "Nothing to apologise for, Roman. It happens to us all from time to time. Maryse and I have had a very enjoyable evening. We'll have to do it again soon."

"Definitely," Reigns said, feigning anticipation that he didn't come close to feeling.

"Next time you can come to our place," Maryse said excitedly. "Nicole, you'll love the new pool we've just had put in. There's a jacuzzi..."

"I'm sure you can tell her about it another time, honey," Mizanin said, using his tone to tell her it was time to go.

"Nice to see you both," Nicole smiled sweetly.

"Mr Rollins here will bring your car around for you," Reigns said as he shook Mizanin's hand. He then kissed Maryse on the cheek and walked them to the living room door, where Rollins took over the escort duties. When Reigns turned around, Nicole was standing behind him with a concerned look on her face.

"What is it, baby?" she asked him when the coast was clear.

Reigns gave her a gentle kiss on the lips. "Nothing you need to worry about," he told her. "Head up to bed, and I'll join you later when I've taken care of what needs to be done."

"Okay," Nicole said softly, giving him a kiss of her own in return. She knew better than to ask probing questions when it came to business. If her husband wanted her to know what he was doing, he would tell her. If he didn't tell her, it wasn't her place to ask. That ground rule had been established long ago. "I'll be waiting when you come up."

"That I will look forward to," Reigns said, eyes glinting. He watched her walk across the entrance hall to the grand staircase, enjoying the view of her shapely legs and pert ass. Shaking it off, he told himself to focus on the events at hand. There were plans to finalise.

* * *

"That went better than I expected," Becky said as she drove quickly away from the Reigns mansion.

"It did, but it's not over yet," Bayley said nervously. "We've still got to take Ronda back there. Then what's he going to do with her? Even more importantly, what's he going to do with us?"

"I don't care what he does with Ronda at this point," Becky said firmly, not taking her eyes off the road. "This is all about making sure you and I come out of this okay. She got herself in this situation as far as I'm concerned, and it can be handled between the Reigns and the Helmsleys."

It seemed cold to Bayley to be so dismissive of Ronda Helmsley's fate, but the second point Becky had made was definitely true. The most important thing tonight was to keep on the right side of Roman Reigns, and that meant doing exactly what he ordered them to do. "What are we going to say to her?" she asked.

"Nothing," Becky said. "We say nothing. We go into the basement, carry her upstairs and dump her in the trunk without saying a word. As soon as we deliver her to Reigns, she stops being our problem."

"We could always take her to the Helmsley mansion instead," Bayley pointed out. "It's not too late to do that."

"We already talked about that," Becky reminded her. "I'm not taking her to Hunter Helmsley. Right now, I think there's a bigger chance of him killing us than Reigns. No, Bay, we're sticking to the plan."

Bayley looked at her girlfriend. "Okay, Bex. I trust you."

* * *

Less than an hour after Reigns had sent them to fetch Ronda, Bayley and Becky arrived back at the mansion. Becky parked their car in the same place they had been told to leave it last time. She noticed that the man at the gate had called ahead, as the man who had been in Reigns' office with them earlier was there to meet them, along with the guy she knew to be called Rollins. If she'd read things correctly, he was Reigns' right hand man.

"In the trunk?" Styles asked her as she got out of the car. She nodded, and he produced a knife.

"You're not going to kill her are you?" Bayley asked, standing the other side of the car with a horrified expression on her face.

A chuckle was her only response. Styles walked over to the trunk and opened the lid, immediately being greeted by angry, muffled shouting from the bound and gagged Ronda, who glared up and him as she tried to writhe against her bonds.

"Quiet," Styles said.

Then Ronda saw the knife in his hand. "Mmmmmphhh!" she screamed as loud as she could, eyes wide in fear as she focused on the blade.

"I'm going to free your legs so you can walk into the house," Styles advised her. "I have instructions not to hurt you unless you make me."

Styles leaned into the trunk and used the knife to cut through the tape around Ronda's ankles, then did the same for the bonds below and above her knees. "Okay, climb out," he ordered her.

Being uncooperative was tempting for Ronda, but she knew that while she still had her hands tied, she was too vulnerable to whatever violence might come her way as a punishment. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she had been brought to the Reigns mansion, which made her feel confident that no one would harm her until she was face to face with the man himself. Then things might get interesting. But then, although Reigns was her family's rival, he was no idiot. He would know how severe the consequences of hurting her would be. Awkwardly, Ronda managed to sit up in the trunk and swung legs out over the side. Styles gave her a helping hand to get out, and made sure she was steady on her feet.

"This way," Rollins ordered, standing near the mansion's open front door.

"Tmmph mmph ommh mmm," Ronda tried to say to Styles, using her eyes to gesture to her gag.

"Just walk," he told her impatiently, giving her a shove towards the house. "I don't want to have to tell you again."

Bayley couldn't help feeling guilty as she walked beside Becky, following Ronda and Styles into the house. She was imagining how scared she would be in Ronda's position. The bigger problem she had in mind was what Reigns was going to say or do to them next. They had done everything he'd asked. Now they just had to hope that was enough to stop him from having them killed.

Reigns was standing in the entrance hallway when Rollins walked in, followed by Ronda and Styles, then by Bayley and Becky. "Ms Helmsley, welcome," he greeted his unwilling guest, as if she was an old friend he had invited over for dinner. "If I could just ask you to take a seat in the living room, I'll be with you shortly. Mr Styles will show you the way."

For a moment, Becky watched Ronda being lead away across the entrance hallway, then returned her attention to Reigns, knowing that he was going to address her and Bayley now. The smile she saw on his face took her by surprise. "Thank you for the unexpected gift, ladies. And thank you for the flash drive. You've done well tonight, given the circumstances you found yourselves in. Come back tomorrow at the time we previously agreed, and you'll get your money."

"Thank you, Mr Reigns," Bayley said, feeling like she might piss herself out of sheer relief.

Reigns gestured towards the front door with his head. "Get out of here. I've got business to attend to."

"Yes, sir," Becky said. Both women turned and made their exit as quickly as they could without making it look like they wanted to run.

"Oh my god," Bayley gasped out when they were back in their car. "I never want to experience anything like that again. I've been so scared for the past few hours."

"Me too," Becky said as she fired up the engine. "I've got an idea though, Bay."

"What's that?"

Becky pulled away and slowly drove down the driveway. "I'd make a bet he's going to have one of his men take Ronda somewhere else. He's not going to keep her here. That would be too obvious. We're going to wait further up the road, and we're going to follow the first car that comes out of here."

"Why would we do that?" Bayley asked nervously.

Becky glanced at her girlfriend and smiled for the first time in a while. "Call it insurance."

* * *

In the mansion, Reigns headed for the living room as soon as Bayley and Becky closed the front door behind them. Walking in, he saw Ronda sitting on the couch were Mike and Maryse Mizanin had been enjoying their night not so long before. She eyed him warily, her nostrils flaring as she breathed through her nose. Styles stood beside the couch, ready to grab her if she was stupid enough to try and make a run for it. Lastly, a scruffy looking man with messy blonde hair, wearing dirty jeans and a simple black T-shirt slouched on the other couch, until he noticed Reigns' presence and made more of an effort to come to attention.

"Thanks for dressing for the occasion, Ambrose," Reigns quipped.

"Sorry, boss, but Styles said you wanted me to come straight over. I was in bed."

Reigns seriously doubted that was true, given the distinct smell of alcohol in the room. It was more likely that Ambrose had had a woman with him, probably a whore if his track record was anything to go by. This time, Reigns decided to let it slide. There were bigger things to worry about. "Join me outside for a moment," he ordered Ambrose.

"What's going on?" Dean asked quietly once they were out in the hallway. "That's Ronda Helmsley in there."

"Thanks for the clarification," Roman said just as quietly, managing not to roll his eyes. "What you're going to do is, take her to your place. I don't want her here, for obvious reasons. Hunter's not exactly going to be happy when he finds out we have her, and he just might be stupid enough to have a bunch of his goons try and storm the place to rescue her. There will be no point in him trying that if she's not here. You are to keep her at your place until I say otherwise."

"Okay, boss," Ambrose said, even though Reigns wasn't done speaking.

"And you are _not_ to hurt her unless I say so," Roman emphasised. "Am I completely clear about that?"

"As crystal," Ambrose said. "Do you want me to take her now? I need something to tie her legs up with. I'm not putting her in the car how she is now."

"Go and find something then," Reigns said impatiently. "What do I look like, a fucking servant? And hurry up about it. Once I've got a picture of her to send to her dad, you can get her out of here."

Without waiting for a response, Reigns turned and walked back into the living room. Ronda looked up at him again, still wary, not that that was any kind of surprise to him. "Ms Helmsley. The first time we've met, I believe? I'm sorry it's not under better circumstances, but you know what they say about one man's misfortune being another man's opportunity. Your father is going to be rather keen to see you return home unharmed, obviously, and I'm willing to allow that to happen. But the problem we have here is that you're now a commodity; a very valuable one at that. A person who wishes to acquire a commodity from another person must pay them something in return. That's the most basic principle of business. So, I'm afraid you're going to have to be a guest of Mr Ambrose for a while, until your father and I can work out a deal that's acceptable to both parties."

Ronda glared menacingly at Reigns, but didn't give him the satisfaction of trying to abuse him or plead with him. He would get his payback for this, her father would make sure of it.

"Right now," Reigns went on, taking his phone out of his pocket, "I need to get a picture of you, to prove to daddy dearest that you're enjoying our hospitality."

Go ahead, enjoy your moment, Ronda thought as he aimed the phone's camera at her. It was upsetting to think about how her mom and dad would react when they saw the picture. Her dad's initial horror would quickly be replaced by anger, but her mom would probably be inconsolable. Although people outside of the family would find it hard to believe, they were both loving parents. They would stop at nothing to bring her home safely, and Ronda trusted them to pull it off. That was why she wasn't being more uncooperative with Reigns herself. There was no point risking getting herself hurt or killed before rescue came, although the mention of being taken somewhere else was very troubling.

"Thank you," Reigns said, smiling as he studied the picture he had just taken.

Ronda made sure to commit that smile to memory, in the hope that she could have it at the forefront of her mind when she pulled a trigger on the bastard at some point in the future. That was the ideal outcome at this point. Then she could move on to exterminating the two bitches who had brought her here.

"Mr Ambrose will be back for you shortly," Reigns told her. "Nice to have met you, Ms Helmsley. I've got a phone call to make." He walked out of the living room and across the entrance hallway to his office. After sitting down behind the desk, he picked up the phone. He knew that no matter what time it was, someone would answer the phone at the Helmsley mansion on the other side of the city.

"Helmsley residence," a male voice said after only three rings.

"I need to speak to Hunter urgently, please," Reigns said politely.

"Mr Helmsley isn't available at the moment."

Because he's in bed, Reigns thought. He maintained his politeness as he said, "He will be when you tell him Roman Reigns is on the line."

"One moment," the voice said. One moment turned out to be two minutes before Hunter's voice came on the line.

"Reigns?" the familiar voice said. "Have you got any idea what time it is?"

Reigns ignored the irrelevant question. "Hunter, I think we should meet in my office first thing tomorrow morning. Something quite interesting has happened."


	4. Chapter 4

"Hunter, I think we should meet in my office first thing tomorrow morning. Something quite interesting has happened," Hunter Helmsley heard on the other end of the phone.

After being woken up by one of his men, the head of the Helmsley empire had walked down to the ground floor hallway to take the call. He was only wearing a pair of black suit pants; they had been the closest things at hand when he had gotten out of bed. "What do you mean, something interesting has happened?" he barked at Roman Reigns, a lot less than impressed with the cryptic nature of the phone call that he had been awoken to take.

"I sent two people out to do a job for me tonight. They returned with something a lot more valuable than what I sent them to bring me. To be specific, they brought me your daughter."

Helmsley snapped fully awake at that news and his mouth dropped open for a second. At her own insistence, he had sent Ronda to do the job of breaking into Ric Flair's house and stealing the data from his computer. It should have been the simplest of jobs, yet it seemed that she had somehow fallen foul of two of Reigns' men while she was in the house, and she was now being held captive. His baby girl was being held captive by Roman Reigns. If it was possible for a person's blood to both run cold and boil at the same time, that would have been how Hunter felt in that moment.

"Now you listen to me, Reigns," he said, voice cold as ice. "This is not a game. You're talking about my daughter. If she ends up with so much as a broken finger nail because of you or your people, I'll kill everyone who's ever even had a positive thought about Roman Reigns. Do I make myself clear? Put Ronda on the phone right..."

"Hunter, Hunter, Hunter," Reigns said condescendingly, cutting the older man off in his stride. "You're not in a position right now to be making threats or demands. And in any event, there really is no need for them. I have no desire to hurt or kill your daughter. If I wanted to do that, I'd be doing it right now instead of sitting here on the phone with you. I have a man taking care of her tonight, and he has specific orders not to harm her in any way unless I tell him otherwise."

"So what do you want?" Helmsley snarled.

"Like I said, meet me in my office tomorrow morning. We'll discuss it and work out a deal that works for both of us. Ronda is obviously valuable to you, so she commands a high price. You know how business works. That's all this needs to be; a business transaction."

"I could get a bunch of my men together right now and come over there," Helmsley threatened.

"Sure you could," Reigns said calmly. "Not sure what good it would do you, seeing as Ronda isn't here. You don't really think I'm that stupid do you? And by the time you even got close to me, I'd have already put a call in to my man, and he would have executed her. Neither of us wants that to happen. So, put your aggression away and come to my office tomorrow at nine AM, ready to negotiate. Do that, and your daughter might be back home unharmed by this time tomorrow night."

Helmsley was holding the phone's handset so tightly that he was almost crushing it. He wanted to go on raging and threatening Reigns, but he knew when his opponent was holding all the cards, and knew that he was holding nothing. It wasn't something that happened to Hunter Helmsley very often. He didn't doubt for a moment that Reigns was telling the truth about having Ronda taken somewhere else for the night. That was the smart play, as it took all options other than negotiation off the table, as far as Helmsley was concerned. "I want proof that Ronda hasn't been hurt," he demanded.

"Fair enough," Reigns conceded. "Give me your cell phone number. I'll send you something shortly."

Hunter impatiently recited his number, wondering if Reigns was having fun with him. If he had the number for the Helmsley mansion, he almost certainly already had his cell phone number as well.

"Until tomorrow, Hunter," Reigns said after repeating the number out loud.

Helmsley was about to deliver another threat about the repercussions if Ronda was harmed, but the call had already been disconnected at the other end. "Shit!" he roared, hurling the phone at the closest wall, smashing it to pieces.

A well built man with dark hair and a beard had walked down the stairs while the phone call had been in progress. "What is it, boss?" he asked.

"Not now, KO," Helmsley said, voice thick with anger as he stormed back up the stairs.

Kevin Owens, Helmsley's right hand man, watched his boss for a moment before snapping into action. Turning to one of the lower ranking members of the Helmsley security staff, he ordered, "Get on the phone. Get Joe and Orton over here, now." Something bad was obviously going on, so Owens wanted to get all hands on deck before the order was even given. Randy Orton and the man everyone referred to as Samoa Joe were Helmsley's other heavy hitters. With that done, Owens made his way upstairs, hoping to find out what was going on.

"What is it, honey?" Stephanie Helmsley asked when her husband walked back into their bedroom and slammed the door closed behind him. She was sitting up in bed, still trying to shake off the sleep that she had been disturbed from.

"It's Ronda," Hunter said as he walked over to the night stand and picked up his cell phone, not relishing the prospect of having to tell his wife what had happened. The bond between a mother and her child was a unique and special one, and he knew how badly Stephanie was going to take the news.

"Ronda? What's happened?" Stephanie asked, voice already rising in alarm. "Is she okay?"

Hunter's phone bleeped once, announcing that it had received a message. He touched the notification to open the message and saw that it contained a single picture with no caption. Touching the picture brought it up full screen. It showed Ronda sitting on a couch, in what was most likely Roman Reigns' living room, judging by the obviously expensive decor in the background. Her hands were obviously tied behind her back, and there were several layers of duct tape wrapped around her mouth. Her expression looked angry, rather than frightened, which made Helmsley feel a sense of pride, even at such an awful moment. The fact that Ronda didn't appear to have been hurt didn't stop him from imagining himself beating Reigns to death with his bare hands right then and there. There would be a hefty price to pay for this, regardless of the outcome.

"Hunter? What's happened to Ronda?" Stephanie asked, more insistently this time.

"She ran into a couple of Roman Reigns' men at the Flair house," Helmsley said, grimacing. "Reigns is holding her captive. She's unharmed, judging by this picture, but I've got to negotiate a deal with him tomorrow to get her back."

Stephanie's hand had risen to her mouth in shock as the news was delivered. "My baby girl," she breathed in horror. Then her anger came out, and it was directed at her husband. "I told you never to send her on dangerous jobs!" she screamed, hurling a pillow at Hunter as it was the easiest thing to grab at the time. "I told you never to put her in danger!"

"This wasn't a dangerous job!" Helmsley thundered back at her after catching the pillow in one hand and throwing it aside. "It was one of the easiest fucking jobs going! And she insisted she wanted to do it!"

"It doesn't sound like it was easy to me!" Stephanie yelled even louder as she snatched his phone from him. Looking at the picture on the screen started tears flowing down her cheeks. "Oh, Ronda," she mumbled.

"She'll be okay, Steph," Helmsley said, realising that screaming at her was only making things worse for both of them.

"How can you say that?" Stephanie demanded, looking up at him with an accusatory look on her face. "You shouldn't have put her in danger in the first place. We have plenty of men who could have done whatever stupid job this was."

Hunter took in a deep breath to help with his temper. "You think I don't know that? Like I just said, Ronda insisted she wanted to handle this. She said she was sick of never being allowed to do anything important. It was a simple matter of breaking into the house and downloading some date from the computer, so I let her have her way."

"And now look where we are. Look at our daughter, Hunter," Stephanie said, heartbroken as she showed him the image on the phone once more. "They've got her tied up and they've taped her mouth shut. She must be scared to death, even though she's doing her best not to show it."

"She's going to be okay," Hunter repeated. Even he thought it sounded less than convincing. "Reigns guaranteed her safety as long as I go to his office first thing tomorrow morning and negotiate a price for her release. So that's what I'm going to have to do."

"I don't care what he wants in return," Stephanie said quickly, "All that matters is bringing her home safely."

"Of course," Helmsley said. "I'll bring her home safe, I promise." Just as he finished speaking, someone knocked on the bedroom door.

"Boss?" It was Kevin Owens' voice.

Helmsley walked over and opened the door enough to speak to whoever was there, but not enough for them to be able to see Stephanie sitting up in bed, wearing only her underwear. Kevin and some of the security detail were standing on the landing, waiting for orders.

"What's happened?" Owens asked again.

"It's Ronda," Helmsley informed his right hand man. "She ran into trouble over at Ric Flair's house. Roman Reigns is holding her captive and demanding I negotiate for her safe release."

"Bastard," Owens said angrily. "Joe and Randy are on the way over. You want us to take some men and hit the fucking place?"

Helmsley shook his head. "Even if I did, Ronda's not there. Reigns isn't that stupid. He's had one of his men take her somewhere else. He's at least guaranteed me her safety until I meet with him tomorrow morning, for what that's worth."

"So what are we going to do?" Owens asked, frustrated.

"Right now, much as I'd like to head out there right now and start killing Reigns' people one by one until I got to the man himself, that would just get Ronda killed. No, until tomorrow, there's nothing much we can do."

* * *

Becky had found a perfect place to park up and lie in wait for the next car that drove away from the Reigns mansion. Having explained her plan to Bayley, both women had been in agreement regarding what they were going to do. It had seemed highly likely that Reigns would have Ronda sent elsewhere, for whatever period of time he desired to hold her captive. Sure enough, a car had left the mansion not long after they had, and Becky had set off in pursuit. Despite the time of night, the roads fortunately hadn't been deserted, and Becky had been able to keep at least one vehicle between themselves and the car they had followed at all times.

About twenty minutes after leaving the mansion, the car they had been following pulled into the driveway of a small detached house in one of the cities seedier suburbs. Becky parked up a few hundred yards away and quickly killed her engine and headlights. "Let's see if we guessed correctly," she said.

"We should be able to see if he takes Ronda out of the trunk," Bayley said, leaning forward and peering through the windshield. "The street lighting isn't too bad."

The man who had been driving the car walked up to his front door. For a moment, the women thought they were out of luck, but then, after unlocking the door, he turned and walked back to the car, then headed for the back to open the trunk.

"I knew it," Becky whispered, even before she saw the man lift a figure, which had to be Ronda, out of the trunk and carry her into the house.

"Okay, so Ronda's in there," Bayley said. She had the Google Maps application open on her phone, waiting for it to track her location so she could identify the road they were on. "Acorn Avenue," she announced a few seconds later.

"The house is number seventeen," Becky said, having counted up the street from the house they were parked outside of. "We have our insurance."

"But what are we going to do with it?" Bayley asked anxiously. "You can't seriously be considering going to the Helmsleys with this? I said we should have taken Ronda there instead of to Reigns, and you said no."

Becky looked at Bayley. "I know I did, Bay. But think about it for a second. We had to go to Reigns with the flash drive, or we would have been on his hit list. Giving Ronda to him as well proved to him beyond doubt that he could trust us. You saw how happy he was with us. But the reality is, I'm sure this thing is going to blow up big time between Reigns and Helmsley. People are going to die over it." She pointed in the direction of the house that Ronda had been taken into. "With this information, we get to pick which side we think is going to win. We can either say nothing and stay in the good books with Reigns, or we can got to the Helmsleys and tell them everything. I'm sure Hunter will spare our lives for coming to him with information on where he can rescue his daughter."

"Oh my god," Bayley said burying her head in her hands. "We can't be wrong on this, Bex. Whichever way we go, if we back the wrong horse, we're dead."

"Exactly," Becky said as she fired up the car's engine once more. "Let's go home and talk it all over. We've got a huge decision to make."

* * *

"There we go, sweet cheeks," Dean Ambrose said as he lowered Ronda down onto his double bed. He took off his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair that stood in the corner of the room. "I'll be back in a minute with something for you to eat and drink. Don't go anywhere," he added with a cruel smile.

Going anywhere wasn't going to be possible any time soon. Ronda rolled onto her side, which was the most comfortable position she could lie in with her hands taped behind her back. The elaborate tape gag that the fake-redheaded bitch had put on her still stubbornly remained in place, despite her attempts to loosen it, and her legs had been thoroughly taped up again back at the Reigns mansion by the bastard who now holding her captive. Ambrose. That was the name Reigns had used. Ronda told herself to remember it. Her father would want to know it, that was for damned sure.

Looking down at her legs, she saw once more just how helpless her position was. Ambrose had wrapped her legs all the way from the ankles to halfway up to her knees in some kind of black tape, which was the widest, stickiest stuff she had ever seen. God only knew what industrial purpose it was intended for, but right now it had been used to make sure moving her legs was impossible, and would remain so until someone cut that shit loose. Even that wouldn't be a simple job.

If there was any small positive to take out of the situation she found herself in, it was that Reigns seemed to have been telling her the truth about his intentions. If she was going to be killed, Reigns would have wanted to do it himself, not have her brought to this shit hole for some lackey to do it for him. No, this was about Reigns using her for leverage over her father. It was a shortsighted idea that would ultimately cost him, she knew. Her father would stop at nothing to get payback for this, and if Reigns thought otherwise, he was dead wrong.

The bedroom she was in was really warm, almost as bad as the basement she had been kept in at the other house. It certainly didn't help that those two bitches had tied her up still wearing all of the clothes she'd worn to break into Flair's house, including her fleece jacket and even her leather gloves. The outfit was perfect for crouching in bushes to hide for an hour in someone's garden to make sure they weren't home, but it was a lot less than ideal when it came to being trapped in a room with the heating on. She could already feel herself starting to sweat again.

Ronda watched Ambrose walk back into the bedroom, carrying a pizza box and a wine glass in one hand and a bottle of red wine and another smaller bottle of clear liquid in the other. Somehow, she seriously doubted it was the kind of fine wine she was used to drinking at home or at her father's place.

"How about something to eat?" Ambrose asked as he dumped the pizza box on the bed, then the rest of the items on a nightstand. He made the offer sound like it was the greatest ever made by one person to another.

"Mmpph," Ronda said, trying to sound positive about it. The truth was she didn't give a damn about his cold pizza, she just wanted the tape taken off her mouth. It had been there for hours, and she was thoroughly sick of the discomfort and the nasty taste of the adhesive.

"Sit up then," she was ordered impatiently.

Much as she hated it, Ronda knew she had to be wary of this man. She knew nothing about him, and right now, tied up like this, she was totally at his mercy. The last thing she wanted to do was provoke him and get herself hurt when she couldn't defend herself at all. She obeyed his instruction, and to her relief, he leaned over her and unwrapped the tape from around her head. He was a lot more forceful than she would have liked, tearing hair from the back of her neck and hurting her lips as he ripped the tape off, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

After crying out in pain, Ronda said, "You can let me go, and I'll tell my dad not to hurt you for this." She had decided that was a better option than making threats.

"Sweet of you," Ambrose said sarcastically as he opened the pizza box and picked out one of the cold, greasy slices, loosing a few of the meat toppings in the process. "How about you shut up and eat?"

Ronda really didn't want to eat the cheap and nasty pizza, but she forced herself to think about the fact that she might not be offered food again for a while. She had to take what she could get while it was there. She opened her mouth and Ambrose fed her the pizza, forcing it in faster than she could chew it; an act which she felt certain was deliberate. By the time the slice was gone, she had tomato sauce and strands of cheese all down her chin. Go on, have your fun, she thought, looking forward to when she was released and she could repay the favour.

"Now time for a drink," Ambrose decided, reaching over and picking up the already opened bottle of wine. Only when he opened the other bottle of clear liquid, which Ronda realised was neat vodka, and tipped it all into the wine bottle, did she realise what was going on. He was going to make her drink that concoction, which would probably drug her near to the edge of unconsciousness.

"I'm not drinking that," she said, shifting away from Ambrose across the bed.

Grabbing the tape around her legs, he aggressively pulled her right back to where she had been sitting. "Yeah, you are. It's only a question of if I have to give you a kicking first. I'd rather not, since Roman asked me not to, but I can easily tell him you tried to escape. Your choice?"

Ronda glared at him, feeling both enraged and helpless at the same time. "My dad's going to kill you, you piece of shit," she spat out with real venom.

"I'm shaking," Ambrose said dryly as he filled the wine glass almost to the top. "Now, drink. I'm not going to tell you twice."

Left with no choice, Ronda had to sit there while he forced not just one, but three glasses of the vile tasting drink down her throat, one after the other, spilling some down her chin to join the mess left there by the pizza. She could feel the alcohol hitting her bloodstream right away, making her light headed. It wouldn't be long before she was completely out of it. Sweat was now trickling down her forehead again, making her really worry about what dehydration combined with the alcohol might do to her.

"You could at least take my jacket off. I'm too warm," she gasped out when he was done pouring wine down her throat.

Setting the glass and the bottle of wine aside, Ambrose said, "Okay, if that's what you want, but there's something I need to do first."

Ronda remained silent as he picked up a T-shirt from the bedroom floor and used it to clean her face. Then he got up and walked over to the corner of the room and started fiddling with his jacket. When he turned around, Ronda knew what was coming next. He had the role of black tape that he had used on her legs in his hand, and he stretched a long length of it from the roll as he approached the bed once more.

"No. Don't you fucking dare," Ronda managed to say before he pressed it down over her mouth. Despite her muffled protests, he wrapped it around her head several times. It was an even thicker, wider, stickier gag than the one she had been so frustrated by before.

"That's better," Ambrose smiled, clearly loving his dominance over her. "Now, you wanted me to take your clothes off, right?"

"Mpppphhhh!" Ronda cried out, eyes widening in horror in the second she had to process what he meant by that before he sprang into action, pushing her back onto the bed, then forcing her to roll over so that she was lying on her front.

"Let's see how _hot_ you really are, shall we?" Ambrose asked as he sat on her legs and began to rip the tape away from her wrists, then from around her arms just below the elbow.

"A big, strong girl, I like that," he said when she started struggling against him as soon as her hands were free.

Although she tried her best to resist, thrashing around as best she could and screaming into her gag, pinned down as she was and being attacked by a man much stronger than her, she was powerless to stop him taking off first her gloves, then her jacket, followed by the T-shirt she had on underneath it. To her relief, he stopped short of taking her bra off also. Then her hands were forced back together behind her back and secured in place in a similar manner to that which he had used on her legs. Her arms were encased in tape from her wrists almost up to her elbows, making it totally impossible for her to move them. For the first time in her twenty two years, she felt genuinely afraid. Her father or his men were not around to protect her, and she was totally unable to protect herself. If this monster was going to rape her, there was literally nothing she could do about it. Whimpering pathetically into the tape, she wondered what would come next.

Ambrose shifted himself so that he was sitting in the middle of her back, crushing the air from her lungs. As she tried desperately to breathe, she heard the sound of keys jangling, then felt him attacking the tape around her legs. She guessed he had some kind of knife attached to his key ring. Her legs were freed in a few moments, then Ambrose set about removing her boots and jeans. When she was left in only her underwear, her bare legs were forced back together and encased in tape in the same way that they had been before.

"That's much better," Ambrose announced sadistically as he climbed off her and stood up. "Sexy little thing, aren't you? I bet daddy still bathes you when he gets the chance, am I right?"

Ronda just lay there looking up at him, trying to get air back into her lungs. It was a difficult take with her mouth taped up. At least he hadn't raped her.

"One more thing, then I think we're done," Ambrose said, making Ronda close her eyes in fear as to what it might be. To her relief, she didn't feel him getting back on the bed. She opened her eyes again and saw him walking around the bottom of the bed. When he got there, he leaned over her and aggressively turned her over so that she was lying on her back, her bound hands uncomfortably trapped underneath her. He then pulled her down the bed so that her feet were almost touching the framework. Picking up the large roll of tape again, he wrapped it several times around the binding on her legs and around the framework. Now, not only could she not move her limbs, she couldn't even shift her position on the bed. As if that wasn't enough, she could feel the alcohol she had been forced to drink really taking hold of her.

"This should be a good night," she heard Ambrose say to himself as he walked out of the room.

All Ronda could do was lie there, groaning quietly in pain and fear into her gag as she looked up at the ceiling which seemed to be starting to spin above her.


	5. Chapter 5

Becky walked into the living room wearing her coat and carrying Bayley's. Both women looked about as rough as they felt, after a long and sleepless night. Getting any rest had been impossible with such a crucial, probably life-changing decision hanging over their heads. If they picked the wrong side in what they saw as the inevitable war between Helmsley and Reigns, a painful death was highly likely to come their way in short order. After much deliberation and worrying, they had reached an agreement on what course of action they were going to take.

"No last minute change of heart?" Becky asked, handing over her girlfriend's coat.

"Thank you," Bayley said, taking it and putting it on. "No change of heart. A lot of nerves, but no change of heart. I think we've made the right decision. Are you still sure about it?"

Becky nodded. "I am. Come on, let's go and get it over with."

The two women walked through to their garage and got into the car, Becky taking up the driving duties as usual. Although neither of them said it, they were both hoping that this wasn't the last time they would see their home.

Half an hour later, they pulled up at the closed gates of one of the city's two most luxurious mansions. "Here goes nothing," Becky said, taking in a deep breath.

* * *

"You look great, baby," Nicole Reigns gushed as she adjusted her husband's dark blue tie for him. She then stood back to admire the full ensemble, including black business suit and white shirt.

"Good enough to show Hunter Helmsley who the boss is?" Reigns asked with a hint of a grin.

"Definitely," Nicole said proudly. "Whatever you have over him must be good?" That was as close to fishing for information as she was prepared to go.

"Oh, it is," was all she got in return. "Things are going to change today, Coco," he said, using his nickname for her.

"I love it when you talk like that," she purred, stepping up to him and reaching up for a kiss.

Just as their lips connected, a knock came on their bedroom door, followed by Seth Rollins' voice. "Boss, there's someone here to see you."

Roman closed his eyes for a second, trying to control his temper at the interruption. He opened his mouth to shout something back, but then thought better of it. It would be easier to hurry up and get rid of whoever it was, then get to his office in time for the meeting with Hunter Helmsley. It promised to be highly enjoyable.

* * *

Neither Hunter or Stephanie Helmsley had been able to sleep at all; unsurprising when they knew their daughter was being held hostage by Roman Reigns.

After getting the bad news, Hunter had started pacing around the house like a caged animal, with nothing more than his employees and the furniture to vent his rage at. The furniture and computer equipment in his office would all need to replaced as he had smashed it all up in an attempt to release his anger and frustration. It had worked, partially at least. The other factor that had calmed him down had been Stephanie's reaction to their daughter's plight.

The matriarch of the Helmsley family had spent the night in a state of shock, curled up on a couch in the mansion's biggest living room. After destroying the office, Hunter had gone to her to try and comfort her, to little result. Stephanie had made it perfectly clear that only one thing would make her feel better: Ronda's safe return. She had also made it clear that she held him entirely responsible for what had happened, and would not forgive him if Ronda came to any harm. It was then that Hunter had realised he had more than one job on his hands; he had to stop his wife from having a breakdown as well as negotiating his daughter's release. As if having his baby girl in danger wasn't enough to have weighing on his shoulders.

"Steph?" he ventured as he walked into the living room, dressed for the meeting with Roman Reigns, which he would soon have to leave for.

"Just go, Hunter," Stephanie mumbled without looking at him as he gently closed the door behind him. She was still curled up on the couch, holding a cushion tightly to her as some kind of emotional substitute for Ronda. "Go, and don't come back without my daughter."

" _Our_ daughter," Hunter bristled, despite his best intentions. "I'm going to come back with _our_ daughter." He walked over and sat down on the other couch, opposite Stephanie, a glass-topped coffee table between them.

"The things they might be doing to her, even as we speak," Stephanie said, her voice distant. "How could you put our Ronda in this position?"

"Steph, I..." Hunter began, but he was interrupted when the door opened, someone knocking gently on it as they pushed it open.

"Someone to see you, boss," Samoa Joe said as he walked into the room.

* * *

Bayley felt like her legs were going to collapse underneath her as she and Becky were lead through the mansion. She had definitely never been so scared in her life, and never expected to be again, if she was lucky enough to survive the day.

Even looking around at the opulence of the mansion was a risk she didn't want to take, but she couldn't help it. In every sense, this had to be one of the finest homes money could buy. One of the huge landscape paintings on the walls of the entrance hallway was probably worth more than everything she and Becky owned, including their home. How the other half live, she thought bitterly. It was amazing what ruthlessly exploiting and killing people could get you in life.

When Becky glanced at her, Bayley tried to reciprocate her reassuring smile, even though she couldn't possibly have felt further away from reassured. Regardless, they were now committed to their decision, come what may.

"In here," the man who was leading the way said, arriving at a closed wooden door.

Bayley drew in a deep breath, hoping it would stop her being sick right then and there. Despite the wild urge to turn and run, she found herself following Becky into the room.

There they were, she saw, fighting to keep control of her bladder as feer squeezed her in an iron grip. Hunter and Stephanie Helmsley were looking at them as they walked in. Both had icy glares on their faces that chilled Bayley to the bone. She felt her hands start shaking. Either of these people could, and possibly would, have her and Becky killed at the click of their fingers. Judging by the looks on their faces, they were in the mood to do just that, not that it was surprising, with Ronda Helmsley missing. Stephanie in particular looked like she'd had a rough night of it.

"What's all this about?" Hunter demanded of his man.

"These two claim they have information regarding Ronda's location, but they will only talk to you about it."

"Where is she?" Stephanie demanded immediately, jumping to her feet.

Hunter rose also, and put a hand on his wife's shoulder, which clearly indicated to everyone that he would be handling the rest of the conversation. "Steph, leave us. I'll deal with this," he said, leaving no room for argument.

No matter what issues were going on between them, Stephanie knew when to do as she was asked. If these two women did have information that would help with bringing Ronda home, Hunter would get it out of them and act on it. Either that, or he would deal with them appropriately for bringing false hope at a time like this.

Bayley kept a careful eye on Mrs Helmsley as she walked past them, still looking coldly at them. "Joe, go with her," she heard Hunter say. A few seconds later, the door closed with a loud click. She and Becky were alone in a room with the head of the Helmsley family. Her hands continued to shake.

"Sit," Hunter ordered them, gesturing to the couch that his wife had been occupying moments before.

Both women walked over and sat down on the couch without saying anything. They had no intention of speaking without being asked a question, wanting to do anything possible to avoid angering him, before the inevitable of course.

"Who are you, and how do you have information about my daughter's location?" Hunter asked them after they sat down, glaring from one to the other.

Becky decided to do the talking, knowing that Bayley would be panicking even worse than she was herself. "Mr Helmsley," she began, as respectfully as possible, trying not to sound scared. Terrified or not, she wanted to be taken seriously. "I'm Becky Lynch, this is Bayley Martinez. Last night, we were given a job by Roman Reigns. We were ordered to break into a house and steal some computer data." She stopped, as Hunter's face had visibly darkened in rage.

"You're the people who kidnapped Ronda?" he asked. Somehow, the fact that his voice had gone quieter seemed even more threatening than if he had screamed at them.

"Yes, sir," Becky managed to get out, wondering if these were the last few moments of her life. "We didn't know it was Ronda at the time," she added quickly. "It was dark in the house. Ronda was in there before us, but we didn't know that either. We broke in, and Bayley was in the process of stealing the files when Ronda confronted her. I was down the hallway, checking out the other rooms, and Ronda didn't know I was there. I was able to sneak up behind her and hit her with a lamp. Somehow, it didn't seem to do her much harm, even though it knocked her out," she assured him.

"Go on," he said, both fists clenched on his lap.

"We didn't know who she was, like I said. We'd been specifically instructed by Mr Reigns not to leave any sign that we had been in the house, so we decided that we had to take this mystery woman with us and let Mr Reigns decide what to do with her. I wrapped her up in duct tape and threw her in the trunk of our car. Only when we got home and opened the trunk again did we really get a look at her, and of course we recognised then that she was Ronda Helmsley."

"And the reason you didn't bring her home right away is what exactly?" Helmsley asked menacingly, cocking his head to one side.

"We thought about it," Becky promised him. "We really did think hard about it, but we decided that you might kill us for what we'd done, and even if you didn't, Ronda might kill us herself. And if she didn't, Mr Reigns would kill us for betraying him."

"So why are you here now? All of those things are still true," Helmsley said, matter of fact. "I'll hear from you this time," he added, gesturing to Bayley. "All you're doing is sitting there looking pale and shaking. Can you talk or not?"

"Yes, sir, Mr Helmsley," Bayley stammered, plainly scared to death, "We realised we had to make a choice. We figured this is going to end in a lot of violence between you and Mr Reigns, and we had to back the right side if we had any chance of living through this. We don't want to die," she couldn't help adding.

"You took Ronda to the Reigns mansion last night?" Hunter demanded, ignoring her fears.

"Yes, sir," Bayley said. "We took her to Mr Reigns."

"But then we decided not to leave it there," Becky cut in to help her girlfriend out. "We figured that Mr Reigns wouldn't want to hold your daughter captive in his home; he would have her taken somewhere else. We figured correctly. We waited in our car just up the road from the mansion and followed the next car that came out after us. Sure enough, Ronda was in the trunk. We saw Reigns' man take her into a house, and we have the address."

"Smart woman," Hunter admitted. "And you've now decided you want to trade that information to me in exchange for my word that I won't kill you for what you've done, and I'll protect you from Roman Reigns, is that it?"

"Yes, Mr Helmsley," Becky said. She knew that Hunter could make them that guarantee, get the address and then kill them anyway, but that was a risk they had to take.

"Here's the deal you're going to get," Helmsley said, in that same tone again which brooked no negotiation. "You're going to give me the address, you're going to come with me and my men to the address, and if we get Ronda out of that house unharmed, I won't harm you. You will have my thanks for coming to me with the information instead of siding with Roman Reigns. You will also have my word that you will placed under protection so that Reigns' people won't be able hurt you."

Neither Becky or Bayley needed to be told how important it was to have the thanks and protection of Hunter Helmsley. "And if you don't rescue her unharmed?" Becky had to ask.

"Then I'll personally slaughter the pair of you for what you did to my daughter," Hunter said, eyes burning into them both. "Now, give me the address."

"It's number seventeen, Acorn Avenue," Bayley blurted out.

"Joe!" Helmsley roared at the top of his voice.

The door crashed open within seconds. "Yes, boss," Samoa Joe asked, hurrying into the room.

Hunter stood up and walked towards his underling. "I've got an address for where Ronda is being held. Get KO and two other men ready to move right now. We'll take the van. And handcuff these two," he added, gesturing towards Becky and Bayley. "They'll be traveling with us. If we rescue Ronda unharmed, they're going to be under our protection."

"Got it," Joe said, glaring at the two obviously terrified women. There was no need to ask what would happen to them if Ronda wasn't rescued unharmed.

Hunter left the room without another word to Bayley and Becky, Joe trailing behind him.

Although they had been left alone for a moment, Becky and Bayley knew better than to move from the couch. There was no way they would make it out of the house, and even if they did, Helmsley's men would soon hunt them down and kill them. No, they had to go along with what the boss had ordered, and pray that Ronda was indeed rescued unharmed. Their lives now depended on it.


	6. Chapter 6

_The previous night_

Ronda Helmsley slowly opened her eyes. The cocktail of alcohol that had been forced into her had taken hold of her and made her pass out, she realised. She had no idea how long she had been out for.

With the alcohol still in her bloodstream, it seemed like the room was spinning around her. She had to close her eyes again to stop herself feeling nauseous, knowing that if she did vomit she would choke on, with her mouth so securely taped shut. The vile taste of the thick, industrial strength adhesive that was sealing her lips almost as tightly as glue certainly wasn't helping to put her stomach at ease. Overall, it was a truly horrible state to be in.

Even before she had passed out, time hadn't been registering properly in her drugged state, leaving her unsure as to how long it had been since that bastard Ambrose had undressed her down to her underwear, gagged her, thoroughly bound her arms and legs and taped her to the bed's framework. What she did know was that he had done it all well enough to prevent her from escaping; she could barely move an inch, let alone free herself. She could barely feel her arms as the circulation was being restricted by the fact that she was forced to lie on them.

Forcing herself to try and focus on the bigger picture, she couldn't deny that her situation was bad. Roman Reigns had been smart in having her moved to another location, a long way from his mansion. Yes, Reigns was an enemy of her family, but he certainly wasn't an idiot. That meant there was likely to be only one way she was getting out of this alive, if escape continued to be impossible. Her father would have to make a deal with Reigns, paying whatever price he demanded for her safe release and then hoping that Reigns lived up to his end of the deal. And all of that relied on this nut job Ambrose not doing anything to harm her in the meantime, which she wasn't confident about in the least. She cursed Reigns for handing her over to him of all people. He seemed like the kind of lunatic who would be willing to rape and murder her if the urge to do so became too strong, choosing to face the consequences afterwards. For that reason, in her incredibly vulnerable state, she was afraid of him.

More time dragged by. Suddenly, Ronda heard footsteps approaching the room. Risking opening her eyes, she saw Ambrose walk in, downing the last of a bottle of beer. He had clearly gone off to get himself drunk, and probably to do some other drugs as well, judging by the state of his appearance. Now he was back, and she dreaded to think what might be about to happen next. Watching him warily as he slammed the empty beer bottle down on the crappy little nightstand, she stayed absolutely still and silent, doing all she could to avoid provoking him.

"Comfortable?" he asked with an evil grin, climbing onto the bed and lying on his side next to her, his face only inches from hers. The overpowering smell of alcohol on him set her stomach churning again. She continued to eye him warily, but didn't respond to the question in any way.

"I'll take that as a yes," Ambrose decided, his eyes wandering further down her body. "You know, I'm glad you asked me to undress you. You're not what I'd usually describe as hot, but there's something about a muscly chick that I like. A decent pair of tits would do you a lot of good, but overall? I'd happily give you a fucking good seeing to."

"Nmmm," Ronda protested weakly, fearing that he was going to rape her.

"Oh, don't be like that," Ambrose said condescendingly, stroking her cheek with a finger. "You know you'd enjoy it. I bet daddy doesn't let guys within a hundred feet of you, does he?"

Ronda shifted away from him as much as her very limited range of movement allowed, feeling her heart starting to race in fear. It was one thing to imagine what her father was eventually going to do to this piece of shit, but what was she going to have to go through first?

"The problem is, Roman told me not to hurt you unless he gave me the word," Dean said with resignation. "I guess we need to figure out how literally he meant that, right? I'm going to guess this doesn't qualify as hurting you." He slipped a hand under her underwear and began to caress her with his fingers. Even with her lower legs secured in tape, he had enough room to maneuver.

Pleading into her gag, Ronda did everything she could to get him to stop touching her, but if anything, he seemed to enjoy the fact that she was making moaning noises. The sick bastard probably thought she was enjoying it, she realised. The worst part of all was that she couldn't stop her body responding to his touch. Much as she hated being violated in such a way, she could feel her body going with him, and she knew that he wasn't going to stop until she had gone all the way. All she could do was lie there helplessly and wait for it to be over, and pray that his encore wasn't going to be full-on rape.

"There we go," Dean encouraged, feeling her approaching her orgasm. "Come for me, Ronda. You know you want to."

Try as she might, Ronda couldn't hold herself back. Her body simply wouldn't allow it. Moaning pathetically at the humiliation of it all, she felt herself approaching her peak.

"That's it," Ambrose said, enjoying every second of it. "That's it," he repeated even louder as she came, groaning heavily into the tape.

"Good girl," he breathed when it was over. Leaning over her, he planted a kiss on the tape where it covered her mouth. "It's a shame, but I think that's going to have to be all. Personally, I'm hoping your dad gives Roman a bunch of attitude when they meet, and they don't make a deal. If that happens, don't worry, I'll make sure you get one last good fucking before you die."

"My dad's going to kill you," Ronda tried to say. Predictably, the words completely indecipherable.

"I can't understand a word you're saying. Don't you realise that?" Dean taunted her. "I can't understand you, and no one else is going to hear you. No one knows where you are, and no one is coming to rescue you. Hell, with your mouth taped like that, all I have to do to kill you is this." With his thumb and index finger, he pinched her nostrils together, making it impossible for her to breathe. Ronda strained against her bonds and yelled in panic into her gag, which only resulted in Ambrose laughing at her. It was all futile. No matter what she tried, she couldn't get any air. The tape simply would not come off her mouth and she couldn't pull herself away from him. She soon started to feel lightheaded as her grip on consciousness began to slip away.

"See what I mean?" Ambrose said calmly, suddenly removing his fingers. "I could kill you that easily right now." He watched her as she breathed desperately through her nose, trying to take in the air that her lungs desperately needed. "I wouldn't make it that easy though, if it came to it," he promised her. "I'd make sure it was a slow, painful death. And I'd make sure I filmed it, so that mommy and daddy could enjoy it, too." He held up a hand, showing her his crossed fingers. "Let's just keep our fingers crossed daddy sticks to type and gives it large when he meets Roman. That won't go well for you, but it will for me. Until then, lie here and don't make a sound. I'm not afraid to come back in here and beat the shit out of you. All I need is an excuse."

Ronda closed her eyes in relief as Ambrose got off the bed and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The experience had been horrifying and her situation was still perilous, but at least he had gone for now. "Daddy, help me," she pleaded into the tape, knowing that her life was totally in his hands.

* * *

Bayley felt like she was going to start crying at any moment. She was sitting in the back of a van, next to Becky. Both of them had their hands cuffed behind their backs. On the other side of the van sat Hunter Helmsley, the huge man he addressed as Joe, and another well-built man who was addressed as KO. The fourth member of the team, apparently called Orton, was driving the vehicle. All of the men were dressed in black and carried assault rifles fitted with suppressors, which was more than enough to scare Bayley. Even worse was the fact that they would soon arrive at the house where Ronda Helmsley was being held, and if she wasn't rescued unharmed, she and Becky were promised a painful death.

Turning to her girlfriend, Bayley could see Becky trying to tell her it would all be okay with the look in her eyes, not wanting to risk angering the men by saying anything out loud. Judging by the look on Hunter's face, he was ready to kill the first person who stepped out of line. It was hardly surprising, Bayley had to admit. After all, the man's daughter was being held captive. And it was their fault.

"This is the street," Orton announced a few minutes later. Bayley felt the van driving a lot slower than it had been before.

"Number seventeen," Hunter ordered, meaning which house they were about to target.

"I'm going to have to park across the street," Orton said. "It's solid with cars on that side. There's no one around, though. There's no lights on in the house."

"Okay, get ready to move," Hunter said, his tone all business. "As soon as the van stops, we hit the place. KO, you and me are going in the front. Orton and Joe, you're going in the back."

"What if someone has a gun or a knife on Ronda?" Kevin Owens asked.

"I'll deal with that if it happens," Hunter said. "Ideally, the fact we're taking them by surprise will prevent that from being a problem. If it was me holding her, I'd have locked her in the basement or tied her to a chair. I wouldn't be covering her with a gun the whole time."

"We think it's only that one guy in there," Becky ventured bravely.

"Yeah, but we don't know that for sure," Hunter said, showing no particular animosity towards her, which encouraged Bayley a little. But then, he was focused on the job at hand, not taking revenge on them. That would come soon enough, if it proved necessary. "The two of you are going to sit in the van," he went on, alternating eye contact between them. "You're going to sit here and stay silent until we come back. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Mr Helmsley," Bayley said quickly.

"Yes, sir," Becky agreed.

The van drew to a stop and Hunter called out, "Move!" All four men bailed out of the vehicle in seconds, guns at the ready. One of them slammed the rear doors behind them.

"Please rescue her," Becky whispered under her breath, if only for her own reasons.

"Bex, I'm so scared," Bayley said, resting her head on her girlfriend's shoulder.

Becky snuggled up to her as much as she could. "It's going to be okay, baby," she promised, desperately hoping that she was right.

All four men in the Helmsley team had reached the front of the target house without any members of the public seeing them and panicking. That was the first hurdle out of the way. "Synchronise watches," Hunter ordered, his voice hushed. All four had stopwatch functions on their time pieces. When Hunter nodded, they all started them running. Looking at Orton and Joe, he said, "In thirty seconds, we go in."

"Got it," Joe confirmed in a similar tone. He turned and lead Orton around the side of the building.

"Boss, I'm going in first," Owens said when they were alone.

"No chance," Helmsley said hotheadedly. "My daughter's in there. If anyone's going in first, it's going to be me."

"No, it's not," Owens said firmly. "The first one in is the most likely to take a bullet, if they're waiting for us in there. That's not going to be you. I'm going in first. Assuming we don't get fired upon, I'll take downstairs, you head upstairs."

"Fine," Helmsley agreed reluctantly. He counted down the last few seconds with his fingers, and when he reached zero, Owens kicked the door as hard as he could, easily smashing the simple lock clean out of the door frame.

As he rushed into the house, gun up, ready to drop a target in an instant, Owens saw no one. That was the second hurdle behind them. No one in the house had seen them coming and prepared to meet them head on.

They had entered into a hallway, with a staircase on the left. Hunter headed up the stairs, while Owens entered the first door off the hallway, hearing Joe, who had broken in through the back door, call out that the kitchen was clear. The room Owens walked into was the house's living room. The floor was littered the remains of an alcohol-heavy night, but more importantly, there was a man just getting off the couch, apparently having been woken up by the front door being kicked in.

"Who else is in the fucking house?" Owens roared at the man, who looked like he was on the rough end of a hangover.

"Just the girl, upstairs," Ambrose said with resignation, realising that this was one of Helmsley's men. Somehow, they had found out where Ronda was being held, which meant that he was now dead for sure. He raised his hands in surrender.

"Good," Owens said, and shot the man in the head. With Ronda's safety at stake, this was no time to fuck around. "Living room is clear!" he yelled for the benefit of his team.

Hunter had needed to be cautious as he walked up the stairs, just in case there was an ambush waiting up there. Seeing no one, he called out, "Ronda!"

A muffled response came from behind a closed door at the far end of the landing, at the back of the house. It would be the most logical place to keep a hostage if there wasn't a basement, Hunter acknowledged. His baby girl was in there. At least she was alive, he thought. Although relief washed over him, he forced himself to remain cautious and check out the other rooms first. There was still the possibility of someone lurking behind one of the other doors, ready to come up behind him if he went straight to the far end of the hallway.

The time it took him to clear a master bedroom, if that was really the description for a room so small by comparison to anything in the Helmsley mansion, and a bathroom that could have benefited from the attention of a cleaner, frustrated Hunter to no end. All he wanted to do was get to his baby girl.

"Downstairs is clear," Owens said, climbing the stairs two at a time. "Joe's on guard downstairs, Randy's gone back to the van to keep an eye on those women. I shot a man in the living room. He said it was only him and 'the girl' in the house."

"This floor is clear, apart from that room," Hunter said, as another muffled yell came from behind the door in question.

"Go. I've got your back," Owens said.

Hunter approached the door and kicked it open, half expecting to see someone in there with a knife to Ronda's throat. He was glad to see that wasn't the case, but that was where the good news stopped. His daughter was lying there, dressed only in her underwear, wrapped up and gagged with a ridiculous amount of black tape. She cried out in relief when she saw him.

"Ronda," he gasped, dropping his gun to the floor and rushing over to the bed. He crouched down beside her and said, "I'm here, baby."

"Jesus," Owens said in the doorway.

"Out!" Hunter roared, whipping around in his direction. "Don't look at her in her fucking underwear! Go and a get a fucking knife so I can get this shit off her!" Owens hurried off to do as he had been told.

"I'm going to untie you real soon, sweetheart," Hunter said tenderly. "Let me try and get this off your mouth."

"Mmmmph," Ronda said, trying to use her eyes to encourage him to be careful. Knowing how sticky the tape was, she could tell that removing it was going to be very painful indeed.

"Jesus, what is this shit?" Hunter asked angrily as he found the end of the tape and began to slowly remove it. It was hard enough to remove the part where the tape had been overlapped, even before getting to the point where it was actually stuck to her skin. Being as gentle as he could, he pulled away the first inch or so of tape that was stuck to her cheek. Ronda groaned in pain as the adhesive did its best not to give up its grip on her skin.

"I'm going to have to wet this to get it off," Hunter told her apologetically. "But don't worry, KO killed the bastard who did this to you."

"Mmmppph," Ronda gasped in relief, eyes rolling back in her head.

"Here's a knife, boss," Owens voice said from out on the landing. A knife was gently tossed onto the floor, near to where Hunter was crouching.

Hunter picked the knife up and set about cutting away the tape that was securing Ronda's legs to the bottom of the bed. "Get me a damp face flannel or something from the bathroom," he ordered Owens as he worked his way through the multiple layers of tape. Eventually, he managed to get through it all, and Ronda was free to move herself into a different position at last.

Groaning with relief again, she sat up, taking the pressure off her arms and restoring the proper circulation for the first time in many hours. Hunter went to work on the tape around her lower legs next, taking a full two minutes to cut through it all and free her, albeit with the tape still stuck to her legs. By that point, Owens had tossed a damp face flannel into the room as instructed.

Picking up the flannel, Hunter made taking the gag off his first priority. Taking it as slowly as he could, he damped the tape and then pulled it off as gently as he could, doing his best to make it as pain-free as possible for his daughter. Pulling it off her lips proved to be especially excruciating. Hunter was enraged by the awful red marks left behind on her face, where the adhesive had either irritated her skin or pulled some of the top layers away.

"Dad," Ronda gasped as soon as she was able, glad to be able to breathe more freely.

"Are you okay, baby?" Hunter asked, continuing his job of removing the tape from her other cheek.

"He sexually assaulted me, dad," she managed to say, feeling the tears starting to come.

Hunter's face darkened as he asked, "He raped you?"

"No. He... He touched me," Ronda said quietly, feeling ashamed of herself.

Wishing that Owens hadn't given the son of a bitch such an easy way out, Hunter forced himself to focus on consoling his daughter. "He's dead now, honey. He's never going to hurt you again. No one is. I'm never going to let anyone touch you again, ever."

As Ronda tried her best to blink away her tears, Hunter finally removed the last of the tape from her cheek. He tossed it aside and set to work with the flannel on the tape around her legs, knowing that it would probably be even more painful to take that off.

"Boss, we should probably get moving soon if we can," Owens said from the landing.

"I'm untying her," Hunter snarled back. "Whatever this shit is he used on her is a bastard to get off. I'm nearly done."

"Dad, just cut through the tape of my arms and we can go. We can get it off me on the way home. If KO shot someone, the cops might be coming." She turned on the bed so that he could access the tape encasing her forearms.

Hunter seriously doubted that the cops would be coming. No one would have heard the shot from Owens' suppressed weapon. Even so, getting out of there was a good idea. He could help Ronda get the rest of the tape off her skin in the van, as she had suggested. "Okay," he decided, going to work again with his knife.

When he had cut through the tape bonding her arms and Ronda was finally free, Hunter looked at her clothes, which had been tossed across the room. He scooped them up and handed them to her, saying, "Get dressed, and we can go. Will you be able to walk? I can carry you if you need me to."

"I'll be able to walk," Ronda said, determined to be strong, like Helmsleys always were. She knew that tears were going to come when she relived the night from hell she had experienced, but she would do her best to wait until she was away from her dad and his men before that happened. Her mom was the only one who would truly understand what she had been through. "I need to pee," she added. "I've been trying not to pee myself for what feels like hours now. I knew that bastard wasn't going to come and let me go."

A couple of minutes later, Hunter was standing guard outside of the bathroom door, like a Lion protecting one of its cubs.

"I heard what she told you," Owens said quietly, anger written all over his face. "What are we going to do about Reigns?"

"Right now, every instinct is telling me to kill him and everyone associated with him, regardless of what it costs us in terms of men," Hunter snarled.

"We'd all go to war over this, you know that," Owens said faithfully. "Ronda means a lot to all of us. We'd protect her with our lives if we had to."

"I know you would," Hunter said, nodding his appreciation of the loyalty. "The only thing is, do I want to sacrifice most of my men, loyal men such as yourself, to wipe out Reigns and his organisation? Because that's what would happen. It would be stupid to think it would be an easy fight."

"What other choice is there?" Owens asked.

"That's what I'm trying to consider," Hunter said quietly, as much to himself as to Kevin.

The sound of the toilet being flushed came from inside the bathroom. Owens quickly asked, "What about those two women in the van? They're responsible for this, too."

Hunter met his gaze, a cold expression on his face. "That's another decision I've got to make."


	7. Chapter 7

The ride back to the Helmsley mansion had been awkward to say the least for Bayley and Becky. While they were relieved that Ronda had been rescued, apparently unharmed apart from nasty red marks on her face from being duct taped for so long, they feared what retribution she had in mind for them. Ronda had sat cuddled up to her father, sitting across from the two women in the back of the van. She was obviously in a fragile state, but she had kept her gaze locked on them for a lot of the ride, and there had been a murderous look in her eyes. Becky expected that she in particular was going to be on the received end of whatever was coming their way. It scared her, but she didn't want to let it show.

Mr Helmsley had ordered Bayley and Becky's handcuffs removed, which had at least been a good sign. Nonetheless, they hadn't spoken a word the whole time, risking nothing more than the occasional nervous glance at each other.

Hunter had spent the time with an arm around his daughter, talking quietly to her to reassure her that she was okay, and that Reigns was going to pay for what had been done to her. Something about the way he said it made Bayley and Becky look at each other, and Becky gulped. Had one of Reigns' people assaulted her? If so, she genuinely felt mortified. She would never have wanted a part in causing something like that to happen to another woman – any woman.

"Here we are," Hunter said to Ronda when the van pulled up outside the front entrance of the Helmsley mansion. "Your mom is going to be so glad you're home."

Ronda said nothing as her dad pushed the rear doors open and exited the vehicle. She just followed after him. Her feet had barely touched the ground when Stephanie arrived, having come running out of the house. "Ronda!" she exclaimed, relieved beyond words. "Ronda, baby! Are you okay?"

"I was scared, mom," Ronda said as they emphatically embraced each other and both started crying. "And that man… he… touched me."

During the tearful embrace, Stephanie was facing into the van, and she made eye contact with Bayley and Becky. They received another death glare when that news was broken. It was perfectly clear who Mrs Helmsley held responsible for what had been done to her daughter. Becky felt her blood run cold and asked herself again if it had really been a smart idea to come to Helmsley after all. Why couldn't Ronda have broken into that damn house after they had already left? Things would have been so much fucking simpler!

Stephanie and Ronda started making their way towards the mansion's front door, allowing Hunter to turn his attention to those remaining in the back of the van. The man referred to as KO was sitting next to Becky, with the other two men having been up front.

"Get these two down to the cellar," Hunter ordered. "Lock them in there for now, until I decide what to do with them."

"You promised us safety!" Becky pleaded. "We helped you find your daughter! We did what we could!"

"If you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut and get in the house," Helmsley snapped. "The last thing you want right now is for me to lose my cool."

"Let's go, Bay," Becky said, gently pushing her girlfriend towards the back of the van.

"Come on, move it!" Owen's ordered unnecessarily.

They were marched into the house by KO, with Mr Helmsley having hurried off after his wife and daughter. It wasn't long before they reached a door and were told to get inside. Becky had pictured a rat infested shit hole when Helmsley had mentioned a cellar, but of course she should have known better. She descended an immaculate wooden staircase into a brightly lit room full of wine racks that were stacked to capacity and expensive-looking paintings of all descriptions – some of them covered in white dust sheets.

The door at the top of the stairs banged shut, and they heard it being locked behind them.

"Could have been worse, I suppose," Becky said when she reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around, trying to sound upbeat for Bayley's benefit.

"They're going to kill us, Becky!" Bayley cried. "Didn't you see the way Ronda looked at us? Or the way Mrs Helmsley looked at us? She would have killed us with her bare hands given half a chance."

Becky turned around and pulled her girl into a hug. "Hey, no one's going to kill us," she said, sounding more certain of it than she felt. "They're all angry, and they're all hurting right now, understandably so. I know I would be if that was my daughter. I feel so bad that we had any part in causing something like that to happen to her."

"I do too," Bayley said, a bit calmer now, thanks to Becky's hug. They pulled apart and Bayley said, "Of course I wouldn't want that to happen to her. I'm glad they killed that guy. I just hope you're right, and we won't be next."

Becky walked across the cellar to where a set of six dining chairs were stacked up. She separated two from the group and sat down on one of them. "We need to give them some time to cool off, Bay. I say we sit down here and cause no trouble, and wait for Mr Helmsley to come see us. He did promise us safety from Reigns, so at least there's that."

"Yeah," Bayley mumbled. "It's the safety from him and his daughter that worries me at the moment."

* * *

For the first few hours after returning home, Ronda Helmsley had wanted nothing more than to curl up on a couch with her mom. No matter how much she loved and treasured her father, there were some things that only her mother could do, and providing comfort in times of need was one of those things.

Ronda had talked her mother through everything that had happened, starting with recalling being smacked on the back of head by the Irish bitch with the orange hair and waking up in a crappy little basement, wrapped in duct tape. She had recounted the conversation with the two women, who had tried to intimidate her before leaving her there for many hours. Then she had described being taking to the Reigns' mansion and being put in the hands of the bastard who had poured alcohol down her throat, taped her to a bed so that she couldn't move and sexually assaulted her.

"Oh, baby," Stephanie gasped when Ronda finished describing the assault in detail. "I wish that piece of shit was still alive so I could kill him myself."

"Me too," Hunter said as he entered the living room, carrying two glasses of red wine. "In a way, I'm pissed at KO for shooting him. I'd have brought him back here and taken my fucking time with him." He approached his wife and daughter and offered them the wine. "I brought you both a drink. I thought you might need it."

Ronda sat up and took one of the glasses, thanking him for it before downing the contents in one hit.

Stephanie nursed her wine more carefully, appreciating it nonetheless. "That is much needed," she said quietly, before looking up at her man with a steely expression on her face. "What are we going to do about this, Hunter? What are we going to do about Reigns?"

"I don't know yet, honey. But rest assured he's going to fucking pay," Hunter promised her.

"He's not the only one, either," Ronda snarled. The hit from the glass of wine seemed to have ignited rage inside of her. "What did you do with those two little bitches we brought back here?"

"They're in the cellar," Hunter reported. As Ronda jumped up to head straight there, he stood in front of her and stopped her. "I get that you want to kill them, sweetheart. But I promised them their safety in return for your location, and it is thanks to them that I was able to save you."

"I still want to kill them," Ronda said fiercely.

"I'm not going to let you kill them, Ronda," Hunter said firmly. "Apart from anything else, they might well prove useful to us."

Even in circumstances like these, Ronda knew better than to argue with her dad when he had made a decision about something. "Fine," she snapped. "At least let me give them a kicking. They deserve that much. I deserve that much."

Hunter considered that for a moment before sighing. "Alright, if it helps you, you can give them a couple of shots each. I don't want them hospitalising, though. That's shit we don't need, alright?"

Ronda's response was to head for the door, cracking her knuckles on the way.

Stephanie grimaced. The violent side that her daughter had picked up from Hunter wasn't her favourite thing to say the least. "You'd better go after her, or she will kill them," she advised.

"Yeah, you're probably right," Hunter admitted, turning and hurrying across the room.

* * *

"I really could use a visit to a bathroom right now," Bayley grumbled. She had lost track of how long she and Becky had been sitting in the cellar, waiting for some indication as to what their fate was going to be.

They had decided that, if given the chance, they would offer their services to the Helmsley cause. It felt like the only way to get out of the situation they had gotten themselves into without being killed by one side or the other.

"Tell me about it," Becky grumbled. "I'll empty out one of these stupid bottles of wine and piss in it before long."

"Eww," Bayley chuckled.

The smile was immediately wiped off her face when they heard someone unlock the door and aggressively throw it open.

Becky knew she was in deep shit as soon as she Ronda Helmsley barrelling down the stairs with a face like thunder. She was coming for them, and that was bad. Very bad. Becky's first two instincts were to try and protect Bayley, and to attempt to talk Ronda down. She jumped up and stood between Ronda and Bayley. "Give me a moment, please, to..."

Ronda stormed right up to Becky and blasted her with a left hand that damn near knocked her out. It cut Becky's cheek below her right eye and sent her collapsing to the floor.

"No!" Bayley squealed at the same time as Hunter came jogging down the stairs, calling his daughter's name.

"Fucking bitch!" Ronda raged at Becky, who was groggily curling up into a foetal position to protect herself. She wasn't quite quick enough to fend off a brutal kick to the stomach.

"No! Stop!" Bayley screamed, grabbing Ronda from behind and trying to drag her away from Becky.

Ronda swung a savage elbow at the woman behind her. It connected with the right side of Bayley's face, catching the side of her nose and busting her top lip open. She collapsed to the floor, blood flowing from her nose and mouth.

Turning around, Ronda pull all her effort into a kick to Bayley's stomach, even harder than the one Becky had taken.

"Ronda, that's enough!" Hunter said sternly.

Ronda snapped back around, noticing Becky struggling to her knees. Another left hand to the face dropped her, turning her lights out. Ronda drew back her right foot for another kick, but Hunter put a hand on her shoulder.

"They've had enough, Ronda," he said gently. "Come on, come back upstairs."

Ronda was still giving Becky a look that could have killed her. She spat on the Irishwoman's unconscious body before allowing her father to lead her away.

When father and daughter reached the top of the stairs, KO and Joe had just arrived, coming to investigate the commotion.

Hunter gestured towards the stairs with his head as he issued his men with an order. "Get those two up here and have Trish take a look at them. They're going to need some fixing up."

* * *

An impatient man at the best of times, Roman Reigns was close to exploding when he looked at his watch for the umpteenth time. Hunter Helmsley was nearly half an hour late for their meeting. Why? Why would the man possibly be late to discuss the freedom of his own daughter? It made no sense. What if something had gone wrong? But how could anything have gone wrong? Only Roman himself and Dean Ambrose knew where Ronda Helmsley had been taken, and Dean's loyalty was beyond question.

"Something's wrong, Roman," Seth Rollins said. He was standing against the wall near the closed office door, a look of concern on his face. He could clearly see that the boss was thinking the same thing.

"Get Ambrose on the phone," Reigns ordered him.

Rollins took out his phone, tapped the screen a few times and then held it to his ear. "It's ringing. No answer," he reported after a minute.

Reigns slammed a huge fist down onto his desk in impatience and anger before getting out of his chair. "We're going to his place now, and we're going to find out what the fuck's going on," he announced.

* * *

 _A/N: Welcome back to this story. Yes, I know, it's been way too long!_

 _Ronda gave Bayley and Becky some treatment, but they're alive. What do you think will happen next at the Helmsley mansion?_


	8. Chapter 8

"That's not a good sign," Seth Rollins said before he even stopped the car outside Dean Ambrose's house. He could see the front door standing open, and there was obvious damage to the frame. It had been kicked in.

"Helmsley," Reigns growled, putting his right hand into his jacket pocket, where he had hidden his pistol.

"We should go in slowly, just in case they're still here," Rollins said.

Reigns nodded. The situation that he had thought was going to be so advantageous for him was quickly proving to be anything but. If Helmsley and his men had somehow found out where Ronda was and rescued her, Hunter would be on the war path now, big time.

"Lead the way," Reigns ordered as he got out of the car.

Rollins killed the engine and got out of the driver's side, walking around to join his boss on the sidewalk. He had a gun in hand. They walked cautiously towards the open front door, watching the windows and listening for any sign that people were in the house.

When a noise came, it was from the house next door, startling both men. A balding man with a beer belly who looked like he hadn't bathed for a few days emerged through his front door, looking at Roman and Seth.

"Get back inside," Roman ordered him, leaving no room for argument in his voice. Even so, he was ignored.

"I thought someone would be coming," the man said. "There were people here earlier. They kicked the door in, and I heard a shot."

"You didn't call the cops?" Rollins asked, wondering why the crime scene wasn't being investigated if this guy had heard what he claimed to have heard.

"No. I don't want anything to do with that shit. Three guys and a blonde woman came out, got into a van and left. The bald guy looked like Hunter Helmsley to me. I know better than to get on his shit list. You didn't hear it from me."

Roman nodded an acknowledgement. "Thanks for the heads up. Go back in your house. We'll handle it from here."

"Fuck it," Rollins said angrily under his breath as he hurried into the building. He was now sure he would find the place empty, apart from the body of his friend, who had apparently taken a bullet for the cause.

Roman followed Seth into the house, gun still at the ready, thinking it better to be safe than sorry.

There was a nasty smell of dried blood coming from the living room. Rollins walked in there and let out a cry of anguish. "In here," he called to Roman.

"Christ, Dean," Reigns sighed when he looked in through the doorway. The man who had been loyal to him for so long was sprawled on his back on the floor, in a pool of his own blood. There was a bullet hole in his forehead. One of Helmsley's men had executed him. Guilt wasn't an emotion that Reigns felt often, but he did in that moment. He has expected to feel anger, but no, it was guilt. This had happened because of his decision to hold on to Ronda Helmsley. He could have played it differently and returned her home without demanding anything in return, and called it a gesture of goodwill. Instead, he had chosen to use her as leverage, and it had gone spectacularly wrong, costing Dean his life.

"How did this happen? How did they find her?" Rollins demanded.

Excellent question, Reigns thought. He didn't have an answer. No one had known about Ronda Helmsley being placed in Dean's custody. The only other people who knew about Ronda being held by Reigns at all were Styles, who was loyal beyond doubt, and… "Those fucking little bitches, it had to be them," he snarled as the realisation hit him, talking to himself. The anger had finally arrived.

"What?" Rollins asked.

"Becky Lynch and Bayley fucking Martinez. It was them who brought Ronda to me. They left just before Dean did. They could have ended up following him here, then gone and squealed to Helmsley, probably begging for their pointless fucking lives."

"Shit, maybe," Rollins breathed. "What are we going to do?"

Reigns took a moment to consider the question. "We go back to the house, get everyone together and start preparing. There's a shit storm coming our way."

* * *

The huge table in the Helmsley dining room was often the place where the boss gathered his senior people when business needed to be discussed. When Hunter entered the room, he found that Samoa Joe and Kevin Owens were sitting on one side of the table, with Randy Orton and Ronda on the other.

"Right," he said after taking his seat at the head of the table. "We all know why we're here. It's time to discuss our response to what happened to Ronda, thanks to Roman Reigns."

"We all want the fucker killed," Joe said, drawing nods of agreement from the other men.

"I want to kill him myself," Ronda said. "The way he stood there taking that picture of me tied up with a smug look on his face. I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands."

Hunter looked troubled by her words, as understandable as her reaction was, given what she had been through. It brought him to the first firm decision he had made. Ronda's life had been put in danger thanks to the fact that he had given her the robbery job to do. He certainly wasn't going to put her in danger again by including her in his plans for dealing with Reigns.

"Okay, Ronda, I know you're not going to like this, but you're not going to be involved in this. You're going to stick to your regular job, supervising the meth lab."

"But I want more than that," Ronda said heatedly. "We had this conversation last week."

"Yes, and look how it turned out when I gave you your own way," Hunter said, a sharp edge to his voice. Even when it was his daughter doing it, he didn't like his decisions being questioned. He forced himself to soften his tone. "I'm not going to risk anything happening to you again." He had almost added the word sweetheart, but she didn't like him to say that kind of thing in front of the guys.

"Fine," Ronda huffed. "I'll just go back to normal, like nothing happened, shall I?"

"Not quite," Hunter said slowly. "I've been thinking about what we could do with Bayley and Becky – what use we can put them to."

"Are you talking about those two pieces of shit who kidnapped me?" Ronda demanded, clenching her fists.

"Yes, I am."

"We're going to put them on the payroll?" she exclaimed in disbelief.

Orton and Owens also looked surprised, but Joe spoke up in support of the idea. "They were working for Reigns. He obviously saw something in them. If he could put them to use, I'm sure we can. Their loyalty is the issue I would have, especially after Ronda gave them a tune up earlier."

"I barely started with them," Ronda said grumpily.

"That's not the verdict I got from Trish just now," Joe said, using no particular tone. "She's trying to patch them up as we speak. I have to say, I felt impressed that they weren't doing any complaining. I think they might have realised they had a beating coming, and they've taken it."

"Good for them," Ronda said icily.

"I'm going to talk to them when we're done here," Hunter said. "I made a deal with them that they would get protection from Reigns if they told me where Ronda was. As we all know, once I give my word to someone, I keep it. I'll explain to them that the only way they can have protection is if work for us. The way I see it, they're a smart couple of girls who went out on what should have been a fairly simple robbery job and ended up in way over their heads. They explained it from their point of view earlier, and they had no idea who Ronda was until they got her back to their place, then they panicked."

"Understandable, if they recognised Ronda Helmsley," Orton said. "But why didn't they bring her back home if they knew who she was?"

"They thought Reigns would kill them if they did that," Hunter said. "They realised they were likely to be killed either way, either by Reigns or by me, but they decided their best bet was to come here, reasoning that they could trade Ronda's location for their lives."

"Not bad logic," Orton admitted. "They were in a serious spot right there."

"So, we're putting them to work," Hunter announced. "Now, Ronda, sometimes in a business like ours, we have to work with people we despise. It can become necessary. I want you to prove to me that you have the restraint required to do that. I'm going to assign Bayley and Becky to work under you, and you're going to treat them fairly, like any other Helmsley employee. Do I make myself clear?"

Ronda could have punched the table hard enough to break her own fist, but she somehow held back. Her father was testing her. As much as that angered her in the present circumstances, she knew that the circumstances were the reason he was doing it. One day, he wanted her to take over the Helmsley empire, but she knew that right now he considered her to be a long way from capable of doing so. That also angered her. Alright, she thought defiantly, she would take the two bitches under her wing. If they expected her to give them an easy time, though, they were sorely mistaken.

"Alright, put them with me," she said with a sigh. "I'll make sure I find things for them to do."

"Good," Hunter said, moving on now that the first order of business was settled. "That leaves the rest of us to deal with Reigns. We killed the piece of shit who was holding Ronda, but that's not enough for me. That son of a bitch Roman had my daughter handed over to him. He could have won favour with me by returning her unharmed, but instead he tried to use her to blackmail me for who knows what reason, and she ended up… Well, we know what that scumbag did. Reigns needs to pay, and he needs to pay big time."

"We're with you on that," KO said. "But, like you said back at that house, do we start a war with pretty even numbers on both sides? Reigns wouldn't be the only one taking casualties in that situation."

"I thought about that," Hunter replied. "It's true that if we take Reigns on directly, it would be a very even and bloody fight. So, we make sure it's not an even fight."

"And how do we do that?" Joe asked.

Hunter looked around at them all before giving an order to Orton. "Setup a meeting with Zelina Vega."

* * *

 _A/N: Thank you to those who reviewed the previous chapter. It was much appreciated._

 _Hunter is apparently going to enlist the help of someone called Zelina Vega. What do you think her story might be?_

 _And Ronda is going to be put in charge of Becky and Bayley. Do you think that will work out?_


	9. Chapter 9

A black SUV with windows an almost identical colour drove across a large parking lot, its paintwork literally gleaming in the morning sun. Anyone who lived in the city and was remotely clued up would have recognised it at a glance as belonging to the Helmsley family.

The SUV parked up near to a large entrance door to an auto repair shop. A steel roller shutter door was opened almost to the top, and a group of several men in overalls were working on a low rider inside the shop. Above the entrance was a sign displaying the name of the business: Almas Autos.

Samoa Joe got out of the driver's side of the SUV, while Kevin Owen's emerged from the opposite side. They were both wearing smart business suits. Joe opened the rear door on his side, and Hunter Helmsley stepped out, dressed even more smartly than his men. They were not there to book the SUV in for repair. They were there because Almas Autos happened to be a front business for Zelina Vega's gun running operation, known informally as The Vega Cartel.

Noticing the arrival of the distinctive SUV, the men working on the low rider had all stopped what they were doing. One of them stepped forward to greet Hunter when he approached the building. It was Andrade Almas, Vega's partner and the owner of the front business, where Vega ran the admin side of things, working in the back office.

"Hunter. Good to see you again," Almas said with a very heavy Mexican accent. He was wiping his hands on a rag in an attempt to clean a layer of black grease or oil off them.

"Andrade," Hunter nodded respectfully. "I won't shake hands, if you don't mind."

"Of course," Almas said graciously. "Head on through. Zelina is in the office. She said you would be coming."

Hunter nodded again before leading his men into the building. He had a cursory look over the low rider on his way past it, having already noticed several other cars out in the lot, awaiting attention. Business appeared to be good.

Apparently having heard them talking, Zelina Vega opened the office door at the back of the shop and stood in the doorway to greet her visitor. At first glance, she didn't look like the boss of a criminal organisation at all. Only five feet tall, and incredibly attractive, she looked to Hunter more like she should have been an actress or something. But that was before you saw the other side of her – a side that Hunter had seen a time or two in person. She could be every bit as aggressive and ruthless as Hunter himself, if anyone was stupid enough to anger her. She was also no dummy when it came to business, as evidenced by how successful The Vega Cartel were in their chosen field, and appeared to have no trouble with the police.

Until the events of the past couple of days, an uneasy peace had existed between the city's three factions. Helmsley had their meth manufacturing and distribution operation, Vega had her gun running business, and Reigns had his interests in counterfeit money and illegal gambling. No one stepped on the other's toes, and occasionally they did business with each other. But Reigns had decided to step across a line and change all that.

"Hunter," Vega said, only a token amount of warmth in her voice as she offered her hand.

Hunter accepted the gesture, being careful not to crush her hand. "Zelina. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me."

"Of course. Come in."

Vega turned and walked into the office, knowing that Hunter would follow her and leave his men outside the door. It was an accepted convention that business was discussed privately.

It wasn't the first time Hunter had visited Vega at Almas Autos, but the office he walked into still impressed him. Somehow, even with a repair shop right outside the door, the state of the art furnishing and décor was always impeccably clean, and Vega's desk was always tidy. There was never any paperwork strewn around the place, as was the case in Hunter's office. The desk was on the left side of the room. On the right side was a small boardroom table with a glass top, with leather office chairs around it. A row of filing cabinets stood against one wall, with a few bottles of spirits and several glasses standing on top of them. The office was decorated with photographs of cars that had been restored by Almas Autos. Hunter had no flair for photography, but he could appreciate the fact that whoever had taken those shots definitely did possess it.

"Have a seat," Vega said, gesturing to the side of the boardroom table closest to the door. "Drink?"

"Whisky," Hunter requested, having noticed a bottle of single malt.

Vega opened the bottle and poured him a drink into a tumbler, then fixed an identical one for herself.

"Thanks," Hunter said when she set the tumbler in front of him and took the seat opposite his.

Vega acknowledged him by raising her glass slightly and taking a sip from it. Hunter repeated the gesture, then it was time to get down to business.

"What do we have to discuss? You need guns?"

"Not this time," Hunter replied. "It's a bit more… in depth than that."

Vega's right eyebrow lifted slightly and she folded her hands together on the table top. "I'm listening."

Hunter didn't feel comfortable talking about what had happened to Ronda. However, he knew that he couldn't show weakness like that to Vega, not if he wanted to get her onside to help him with his plan against Reigns. With that in mind, he began to tell the story.

"The night before last, I sent my daughter out to do a job. It should have been routine – breaking into somewhere, stealing something and bringing it home. But it went wrong. Ronda was in the house when she heard someone else in there with her. She confronted the person, not realising that there was a second one there too, who came at her from behind and knocked her out."

Hunter paused to take a sip from his whisky. So far, Vega had shown no reaction to what she was hearing. "The two people were women who worked for Roman Reigns. They had been sent to steal the same thing Ronda was supposed to get for me. At the time, they claim they didn't know who Ronda was. They tied her up, gagged her and took her back to their place. Only then, so they say, did they realise who they had on their hands."

"I bet that came as a surprise," Vega said dryly.

"I'm sure it did. They left Ronda tied up in their basement for a few hours, before deciding to take her to Reigns and let him decide what to do. And that's where the big problem started. I got a call from Reigns, telling me I should go meet him the next morning because something interesting had happened. He then sent me a picture of Ronda sitting in his living room, still taped up."

Vega made a grunting noise that might had been vague expression of humour. "Not the most accommodating way of playing it."

"It gets worse," Hunter assured her. "For whatever reason, Reigns chose not to keep Ronda at his place for the night. He had one of his men take her away, to his home. Fortunately, the two women who originally kidnapped Ronda realised by then what might happen to them if anything happened to my daughter and I got hold of them, so they followed Reigns' man home, then came to me and exchanged Ronda's location for their lives."

"Lucky for you," Vega opined, taking another sip.

"Yes," Hunter admitted. "So, I got some men together, and we went and rescued Ronda, killing the man who was holding her in the process. Unfortunately, I, uh, found her wrapped in duct tape on a bed, and she had been… assaulted."

Vega grasped his meaning, and a look of distaste appeared on her face. "I'm sorry to hear that, Hunter. That's… awful. Is Ronda okay now? I mean, obviously she's not okay…"

"She's as okay as she can be," Hunter assured her. He had no intention of dwelling on the subject. "I'm sure you know by now why I'm here now."

Zelina leaned back in her chair. "Honestly? I'm not sure I do. While I sympathise with you and your daughter over what happened to her, this sounds to me like a problem for Helmsley and Reigns to handle between each other. Why would I get involved?"

Hunter had come to the meeting fully prepared for that question to be asked, and he had an answer ready for it. "Firstly, because of the spoils on offer. We both know Reigns has interests in counterfeit money, and in gambling. He makes a lot of money from those two revenue streams."

"A large percentage of it from the counterfeiting, as I understand it," Vega said.

Hunter nodded. "Yes. I propose that we work together to take out him and his crew, and we split his empire between us. Not only does that have obvious financial benefits, it seems clear to me that peace, or indeed a positive working relationship, would be easier to maintain between two organisations than three. Obviously I'm looking for revenge for what happened to Ronda. I want to kill that son of a bitch Roman personally, but I'm also looking long term. This can be good for Helmsley, and it can be good for Vega, too."

The head of the cartel said nothing for a moment, sipping her whisky with a thoughtful look on her face while she considered what was being proposed. Slowly, she set her tumbler down on the table, then leaned back in her chair once more. "Half a million," she said coolly.

Hunter narrowed his eyes at her. "Half a million?"

"Half a million dollars. You're coming to me, Hunter. You want to take out Reigns. After what's happened, I get it. But you want my help? You pay for it."

"I already offered to split Reigns' empire with you."

"And so you shall, in addition to paying me half a million dollars. I want the money up front, too."

She was driving a hard bargain. But Hunter had to admit that if it was her coming to him with this, he would have done the same thing. The main thing was that she hadn't blown him off. Hunter wanted Roman Reigns dead, that was his main concern. Even so, he wasn't just going to fold. "Quarter of a million," he offered. "That should more than cover any expenses you have to get ready for an assault on Reigns."

Vega rolled her eyes. "Men," she muttered, sounding exasperated. "We're not going to assault Reigns, all guns blazing. What do you think this is, an action movie? We'll come up with a much better plan than that. A quarter of a million now, another quarter when it's done. And I want the counterfeiting operation – all of it. That's my final offer. Either I'm in, or I'm out. It's up to you."

Again, Hunter found himself thinking that Vega was no idiot. She was negotiating from a positon of strength, and doing it well. He knew he was going to accept the offer. She probably knew it too, but he made a show of nursing his whisky while supposedly thinking about it.

"Alright, you've got a deal," he said eventually. "You mentioned a better plan for dealing with Reigns. What do you propose we do?"

Vega, now effectively a quarter of a million dollars richer, downed the rest of her whisky. "For now, we do nothing. Reigns isn't stupid. You think he's not getting ready for you to try something? Of course he is. If I was you, I'd meet with him and demand some monetary compensation for what he did, telling him to think himself lucky he's got as many men as you. Who knows, he might even pay you. Then, maybe a couple of months from now, when things have settled down, we strike."

Conceding the wisdom of what she was saying, Hunter simply asked, "And how do we do that?"

"We'll come up with something," she assured him. "Let me think on it, and we can discuss it again. As for right now, I believe you owe me a quarter of a million dollars."

"You'll get it. I'll have it brought over in the next few days."

Vega rose slightly so that she could reach over the table, signalling an end to the meeting. "Always a pleasure, Hunter."

Hunter finished his whisky, stood, and shook her hand. "Zelina. We'll speak again soon."

* * *

 _A/N: Special thanks to everyone who left a review on the previous chapter._

 _Hunter and Zelina struck a deal. If you were in charge, how would you deal with Reigns?_


	10. Chapter 10

Stephanie Helmsley's role in the family empire was to run the food processing company that acted as a front business for their meth manufacturing and distribution operation. Usually, her activities were restricted to the strictly legal side of things, with Hunter, Ronda and the rest of the crew handling everything else.

On this occasion, though, Hunter had updated both his wife and daughter on most of what had been discussed with Zelina Vega. This was no ordinary business transaction. It was revenge against Roman Reigns for what had been done to Ronda, and Stephanie wanted blood just as much as anyone else. So much so that she didn't even raise an objection to Hunter meeting with the stunningly attractive Latina the previous day.

"That's a high price," Ronda said, contemplating Vega's demands. "I would prefer to go after the bastard myself."

"I know you would," Hunter said patiently, pacing around the living room, while the two women sat together on a couch. "But then you might get killed. Even if you didn't, a lot of our people would do. I want Reigns taking out as much as you do. Everyone here wants him dead. We don't want to lose half of our men in the process, though."

"Of course we don't," Stephanie said. "And Ronda, you're not going to be going after anyone. We almost lost you once, sweetheart. We're not going to risk that again, are we, Hunter?"

Hunter knew all too well that he wasn't being asked a question. There was no way Stephanie would countenance Ronda being part of any action against Reigns. Luckily, he felt the same way. He had been faced with losing his only child, and that wasn't a position he ever wanted to find himself in again.

"This is crap," Ronda said stroppily. "It was me that had to go through everything that night. I want my part in taking revenge for it. Dad, this isn't fair and you know it."

Way ahead of time, Hunter had anticipated Ronda not being happy at all with the decision not to have her involved when the time came to confront and take down Reigns. For that reason, he had decided give her something to do. At the same time, it could be the first job for Bayley and Becky to take part in.

"When the time comes for the inevitable confrontation, you're not going to be involved, and that's final," he began. "However, there is something you can take care of as part of phase one of the plan."

"And what is that?" Ronda asked grumpily, realising she wouldn't change his mind. When her father decided something, it was decided.

"You're going to take the two hundred and fifty grand to Vega, and you're going to take Bayley and Becky with you. As you know, they agreed to work for us, so it's time to give them something to do, even if it's only shadowing you."

Well aware that she was being tested with the two new recruits being assigned to her, Ronda made a determined effort to keep herself in check. She needed to prove she was a good leader, no matter if she liked or hated the people in question. Personally, she would have liked to inflict a lot more violence on the women who had handed her over to Roman Reigns, but that option was not on the table. Instead, she had to suck up all of that anger and work with them.

"Alright," Ronda agreed, getting up. "Get the money ready, and I'll go and fetch them now."

* * *

Things could have worked out a lot worse for Bayley and Becky, they knew. Either Roman Reigns or Hunter Helmsley could easily have had them killed in any kind of horrific way as a result of the mess they had managed to get themselves into. But now, not only were they alive, they had been given a room of their own in the Helmsley mansion for the time being. Now that they were past the point of Hunter or Ronda murdering them, they figured there wasn't a safer place they could be. Reigns or his people definitely wouldn't be getting to them here.

Apart from the lingering pain and discomfort of the injuries Ronda's beating had inflicted on them, boredom was the only problem they had to deal with at the moment. Mr Helmsley had insisted they swear loyalty to him and agree to obey his orders, which they had been optionless but to agree to. The news that they were going to be assigned to work with Ronda certainly hadn't been welcomed, but again, they had no choice in it. The one positive was that Mr Helmsley had guaranteed they would suffer no more violence from his daughter unless they gave her a justifiable reason for it.

Since that conversation, they had been given no instructions at all. Their days had been spent mostly in their room, as they felt awkward coming out and walking around the mansion. At least Hunter had sent someone to their house to fetch some of their clothing and possessions, so they had clean things to wear and a tablet each for playing games and browsing the internet. Without that, they would have gone out of their minds.

For that reason, it actually came as something of a relief when the door floor open and Ronda Helmsley snarled a single word at them, along with a gesture with her head. "Move!" was the instruction.

"Where are we going?" Becky asked as they hurriedly jumped up off the king size bed they had both been sitting on.

"To make a delivery," Ronda replied. "You're accompanying me to meet an associate of ours. You're there to be seen and not heard, so keep your mouths shut unless you're spoken to, got it?"

"We understand," Bayley said, fighting the urge to cower away from the intimidating woman standing in front of them. The punch that had made a mess of her top lip and the kick that had badly bruised her stomach were still fresh in the memory. Ronda Helmsley could do a lot of damage in not much time at all. Promise from Hunter or not, Bayley still felt uncomfortable around her.

"Good, then let's go," Ronda ordered, standing aside and waiting for them to lead the way.

On the way to the grand staircase leading down to the ground floor, Bayley saw Charlotte, the housekeeper and apparent first aid expert at the Helmsley mansion, walking towards them. It had been Charlotte who had tended to her and Becky after Ronda had beaten them.

"You seem to be healing nicely," Charlotte commented as she approached. She at least seemed to possess some compassion.

"Yes, thank you," Becky replied.

Bayley was expecting some comment from Ronda about waiting to see how long that lasted, but it didn't happen. She just followed them down the stairs in silence.

At the bottom, in the huge entrance hallway, Hunter Helmsley and Randy Orton were waiting for the three women. Helmsley had a large holdall in his hand, zipped closed. Ronda knew that inside it was a quarter of a million dollars in laundered cash. She decided to keep that fact quiet from the two recruits.

"Go to Almas Autos, give this to Vega, and come straight back," Hunter instructed Ronda as he handed over the holdall.

Ronda nodded solemnly to convey her understanding of the instructions. She took a car key from Orton, and with that, she led Bayley and Becky out through the front door. One of the black SUVs with blacked out windows was standing ready and waiting.

"You know where Almas Autos is?" Ronda asked Becky.

"Yes. It's down past the…"

"Just drive," Ronda said impatiently, throwing the key at the Irishwoman rather than to her.

Becky reacted quickly and caught the key before it hit her in the face, then walked around to the driver's door. Bayley got into the back of the vehicle to sit beside Ronda. It was hardly what she wanted to do, but she most definitely wasn't prepared to take the risk of getting in the front in case it was seen as disrespectful.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Becky was pulling the SUV into the lot at Almas Autos. There were several low riders there, in various states of repair, along with a couple of more regular cars. Parked off to one side was a silver Mercedes. It was one of the most expensive models, and it looked as good as new, gleaming away in the sun.

"That's Vega's car. Good," Ronda mumbled to herself, looking at the Merc.

It was no secret to Bayley or Becky who Zelina Vega was. They had never had any interaction with her, but they had been involved in enough nefarious activities to know people who had, and Vega's reputation preceded her. The visit they were making now gave them the hattrick of interacting with all three of the city's vicious crime bosses in the space of a few days. Bayley shuddered at the thought, deciding that she had all the more reason to head the advice Ronda had given them back at the mansion, and keep her mouth shut.

Bayley glanced again at the holdall that had spent the journey on the back seat between her and Ronda. She had been given no indication what was in it, and she hadn't even contemplated asking. Ronda hadn't said a word the whole time anyway. Judging by the look on her face, she was still stewing over the whole situation. That was understandable, Bayley had to admit.

After Becky parked the SUV a cautious distance away from the Mercedes, Ronda got out. She noticed that there were only a couple of mechanics standing around inside the shop. Not much work was going on. Andrade Almas was not one of them. He was either out doing something perfectly legitimate, or on gun running business. Either way, what mattered was that Vega was there.

Bayley and Becky also got out, in a hesitant manner. "Just follow me," Ronda instructed before pausing to look at them both. "You need to start dressing a bit smarter when you're on Helmsley business. When we get back, I'll have Charlotte talk to you about getting some new clothes sorted out."

Bayley had to admit the checked shirt and black pants she was wearing didn't compare to the expensive dresses and business suits that the Helmsley family and employees were always wearing. Even so, the idea of having Charlotte buying clothes on their behalf didn't hold much appeal. "We can get our own stuff," she replied.

"No, you can't," Ronda snapped. "How fucking stupid are you? Suppose you're out shopping and one of Reigns' people happens to see you? Dad said you're staying in the house for the time being for your own protection, so that's what you're going to do, unless you're on business with me."

"She's right, Bay," Becky said gently.

Bayley nodded, thinking that she should have thought things through before making herself look dumb. It was the exact opposite of the impression she was trying to give.

Shaking her head, Ronda led the way into the shop. The two mechanics saw them approaching, and while they may or may not have known who Ronda Helmsley was, they knew cartel business when they saw it. One of them hurried over to the office door at the back of the shop and knocked on it.

By the time Ronda and her two underlings entered the shop, Zelina Vega was standing in the office doorway. She waited for her visitors to approach before speaking. "Ronda Helmsley. This is a nice surprise," she said, not really sounding like she meant it all that much.

"Zelina," Ronda replied is a business-like tone. She raised the holdall slightly. "I have a delivery for you."

"So I see," Vega said. She paused to look at Bayley and Becky hovering behind their boss. Their beaten and bruised faces and the way they were dressed drew a curious look from the diminutive Latina before she looked back at Ronda and asked, "Did you hire those two or find them?"

"A bit of both," Ronda said simply. There was no humour in her voice. It seemed to be singularly lacking from her character.

"You usually beat the shit out of the hired help?" Vega asked next as a small smile appeared on her face.

"No. Just these two."

Vega looked at the two women again, piecing together that these must be the two women Hunter had talked about, who had originally kidnapped Ronda and handed her over to Reigns. She returned her attention to the business at hand and took the holdall from Ronda. There was no need to ask if all of the money was there, or to count it. Doing so in front of Ronda would have been a sign of mistrust and disrespect towards Helmsley, when both parties knew the cash would be checked later and any error on Helmsley's part would lose them Vega's help as well as the money.

"Thank you," Vega said. Before Ronda turned and left, she had a question. "Has your father set up a meeting with Reigns yet?"

"What?" Ronda asked, feeling her temper rising quickly. Why would her father even consider sitting across a table from Reigns after what had happened? The very concept enraged her.

"Reigns is waiting for a response of some kind," Vega explained. "For obvious reasons, we want him off guard when the actual response comes, so Hunter is going to meet with him and make some compensation demands. At least, that was what we agreed."

"He didn't tell me that," Ronda said, failing to conceal her anger. "I'll have him call you or something."

With that, Ronda turned and stormed out of the shop, heading for the SUV. Bayley and Becky hurried after her, not wanting to catch her ire when she was already clearly livid.

Standing there watching them leave, Vega raised her eyebrows at the performance she had just witnessed. "You want to get your daughter under control, Helmsley," she said quietly.

* * *

 _A/N: Thank you to those who left a review last time._

 _A very simple job for Bayley and Becky, but they are at least off to a start working for Helmsley. However, Ronda didn't react well to the part of the plan her father chose not to mention to her. What do you think is going to happen next time, when she gets back home?_


End file.
